


Lamplight

by Autumn_Ignited, SailUncharted



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Character Death, Halloween Special, M/M, Past Lives, Reincarnation, but not really, cryptid lance, cw: fire and car crashes, keith loves moths, mothman lance - Freeform, set in present and 1960s
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 21:54:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26960971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Autumn_Ignited/pseuds/Autumn_Ignited, https://archiveofourown.org/users/SailUncharted/pseuds/SailUncharted
Summary: Keith went into the woods to find a way to save his brother.That’s not what he finds.Or rather - that’s not what finds *him*.A LAMPLIGHT ZINE IS ON ITS WAY!Fill in the interest checkto learn more about our first zine!
Relationships: Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 97
Kudos: 695
Collections: Just some pretty nice fics, Soft Fluffy Klance, Uwu, VLDfanfiction, Voltron Stars🌌





	Lamplight

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pretzellus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pretzellus/gifts).



> This work is inspired by the work of [Pretzellus](https://instagram.com/pretzellus?igshid=1uoqosnx3zttt), most especially by this [picture](https://www.instagram.com/p/By4AywAgU6S/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet) It combines that image, as well as their Klance AUs “Prom” and “Husband Material” into one single story. This was done with the full consent of the artist, who was awesome enough to draw additional art just for this fic, which you’ll find scattered throughout. 
> 
> PLEASE NOTE, re: the tag “reincarnation” (spoilers below) 
> 
> —  
> “Reincarnation” does denote that characters die, but also that they come back, so we did not mark this as MCD. Past lives play a large role in this story. However, if you dislike character death in any form, you may want to skip this one.  
> to avoided stop reading ||x|| and skip to ||o||  
> __
> 
> Autumn: I’m so excited to finally share 2020’s Halloween special with you all. Not gonna lie, I’m *really* proud of this one, and I think it shows the growth Sail and I have gone through since we started posting House With the Red Front Door one year ago. As always, Keith was written by me and Lance by Sail, so you have them to thank for the absolutely heart-melting cryptid you’ll find below. 
> 
> And a very special thanks to Pretz, who did some of the art for both “Pink Like Spring” and “At Water’s Edge.” We wrote this for them as something of a thank you gift for the art, as well as just the awesome, unique work they’ve contributed to the Klance fandom. Please go check out their Insta, especially their original work “Scattershot.” You won’t regret it <3 
> 
>   
> Check us both out on Twitter [Autumn Ignited](https://twitter.com/AutumnIgnited) and [SailUnchartedWaters](https://twitter.com/SailUnchartd)

-🌑-

The woods outside of Lakeview were dense and unwelcoming. No one ever camped in them, preferring to drive out to where the lake actually was, with its BBQ pits and ramshackle outhouses. 

Hunters were the only ones that dared to brave the underbrush and brambles. Hunters and Keith - who, in fact, could now be included in their number since he was technically hunting. 

There’d always been something about the woods that pulled at Keith, drew him close to the fence of trunks. Shiro would sometimes find him standing there, staring into the dark depths as if in a trance.

Even when he was little, newly adopted and still so unsure of his new big brother and the two people trying hard to love him, he’d found peace in the forest. Though he couldn’t remember much, Shiro said those first few months in particular, Keith would whine and scan his big grey eyes through the shadows as if he’d lost something and couldn’t settle until he’d gotten it back. 

It was that sense of incompleteness, a lingering, inexplicable intuition that the woods held answers to questions he never thought he’d have to ask, that brought him to its foothills that night. 

That connection was why he knew this had to work. His quest had to be the accumulation of his life’s purpose. The whole reason he was drawn to this forest was destiny showing him the path to saving his brother. To return a life for the life he’d been given.

He’d been wandering the perimeter of Ferryman Bridge for nearly six hours in a loose sort of elliptical. He didn’t have much of a plan, aside from “make camp when you start getting tired,” so he’d mostly just retraced his own footsteps aimlessly, hoping for a sign. 

The sun had long since set, and he was grateful for having worn a knitted cap and thicker jacket. His feet were warm in hiking boots, but his cheeks and nose were raw with unexpected cold. Much as he didn’t want to, Keith was reaching a point where he would have to call off his search and revert to plan B. 

At least “plan B” involved a campfire and food. Maybe he’d at least start to feel his fingertips again. 

He found a decent clearing about 50 feet back from the lakeshore where he worked quickly to pitch his tent. Within another half an hour, he had a sizable fire crackling and warming his face. 

Keith had come prepared with a few ideas to meet his goal. 

  1. Wander around and hope to get lucky. (Failed)
  2. Build a really, really big fire (To be determined)
  3. Try out the incense he’d read about online (after he was done with his hot dogs)
  4. Barring all that, blood sacrifice. 



With that order of operations in mind, Keith unwrapped and speared a hot dog. Holding it over the flames, he listened for any snaps or cracks other than the logs in front of him. Twenty minutes later, he was still alone, save for a little garter snake that had curled up under his pack. 

So out came the incense. It looked an awful lot like ground cumin, but smelled like citronella - which was sort of strange. He’d figured that if he was trying to _attract_ bugs, citronella would have the opposite effect, but who knew. Maybe the rules didn’t apply in this situation. 

He unscrewed the little shoe polish can where he’d stored the incense, and tapped it to empty the contents into the fire. It snapped and popped and almost immediately sent up a cloud of strongly-scented smoke that left him coughing. This - _this_ had better work, because he was going to be smelling that shit for the rest of his natural life. 

It worked, not in the way Keith wanted it to but in the way the label claimed. The crickets died down and almost the whole forest grew silent as the citronella chased them all away. 

Keith held his shirt over his nose, but the thin fabric did nothing for the stench. 

"Oh, C'mon,” he mumbled to the smoke. “One of these has got to work." 

He really didn't want it to be the blood sacrifice - but.

Fingering the knife in his pocket, he listened to the silence. Even the fire sounded quiet in the dense, pine-thick air. 

Well...fine then. 

“Be that way,” he muttered at the forest in accusation, before pulling out his pocket knife. 

He clenched his teeth and drew the thin blade across his palm, letting a few drops drip into the fire. Then he remembered he hadn’t actually sterilized anything first, and had to bite hard on the collar of his shirt as he rinsed his injured palm with clean water and hand sanitizer. 

“That better fucking work!” he shouted at the tree line. “Because that hurt like hell!”

If the forest hadn't been almost dead silent, he wouldn't have heard it. The small clicking noise that sounded an awful lot like a watchband unlatching. 

“Hey!”

Keith cried out before he could process the logic of it, of any sort of woodland creature knowing how to undo the complicated latch of his watch. All he knew was that the only watch he had on him was his father’s, hanging from his pack, and there was no way anything was taking it before it was offered. He turned, ready to shoo away some sort of clever raccoon. 

That was not the lazer shine of raccoon eyes. 

No raccoon he’d ever seen was as big as a bear with glowing red eyes. 

Despite the firelight, the creature crouched frozen in the shadows. Slowly it unfurled, rising up above Keith's head. 

It abandoned the watch, still half latched to his pack, to turn to the fire. One crawling step forward threw it into sharp display. 

In the light of the flame, the creature's red eyes no longer blotted its face into darkness. 

The creature had a sharp nose, high cheekbones, and full lips that parted as if tasting the flames. Fuzzy antenna poked curiously in the air as it cocked its head and chirped. 

“Oh holy shit,” Keith breathed in a misty exhale. “Holy fucking shit. Holy shit holy shit, it’s _you_ . You...you _actually exist.”_

Backing up a step, it- he- didn't take his eyes off the flames. Huge wings unfurled in dusty plumes. They shimmered with refracted light into the night. 

“Um,” Keith said, struck with the realization that he hadn’t _actually_ thought this would work and therefore hadn’t come up with a plan beyond ‘find the Mothman.’ “Hi. I’m not going to hurt you, if you want to come closer. I’m Keith, and I’ve been looking for you.”

Red eyes dragged from the fire and met Keith’s. He clicked warily a few times and flapped his wings, kicking up leaves and long-settled dirt. 

“Wait, hang on.” Keith held a hand up. To his relief, the wings paused and the creature settled more firmly on the ground. Never taking his eyes off the sight before him, Keith fished around for his backpack and unbuckled his father’s watch. 

“I, um...I heard you’re supposed to bring a gift, or an offering of some kind. This is the only thing I have left from my dad, so I hope that counts for something. Here.” Keith held the watch out towards him. 

A moment passed as Keith listened to his own heartbeat. Fear that this wouldn't work, that he'd put all his hope in a myth, coiled in his belly and made his palms sweat. 

Then, long inky fingers reached out and plucked the watch from his hand without touching him. 

Keith smiled. “Yeah, there we go. You like it? Will that do?”

A _purrip_ answered him. Before Keith could blink, the moth creature was gone. 

He sat there, stunned and blinking at the afterimage. Had that...actually happened? He checked his hand; the watch was gone. 

“Okay!” he shouted to the woods. “I guess I’ll just wait here!”

Nothing happened. 

Baffled and a little frustrated, Keith sank down next to his fire. He stared into it without blinking, watching the shapes and colors shift and wondering what the fuck had just occurred. 

The air shifted and the crickets muted. Birds stopped chirping as the fire hushed. 

Keith’s head snapped back around. 

Between the trees, red eyes glowed amid the shadows. They moved, leaving a trail of light in their path as the creature bent. Something moved through the moss and stopped at Keith’s shoe. 

He bent and picked it up, holding it up to the firelight. 

It was an ancient-looking bar of candy. Bonomo vanilla Turkish taffy, the label happily announced. The design and font were definitely vintage of some variety, and Keith had never even heard of it before. 

“Is this...for me?” he asked hesitantly. 

The creature clicked and all sound faded from reality. Pure and complete silence. The only thing Keith could hear was the rushing of blood in his veins. It was a depressing and deep quiet that fell so heavy around them that the fire dimmed its light in respect. 

Another click and the roar of the quiet forest popped his ears. 

-🌑-

After everything, the smell of motor oil and tires felt too normal. It was as if the real world was blurred and dulled in the wake of his chance meeting. Even the classic rock that strummed quietly through the hissing speakers felt dusty and gray. 

“Hey kid,” Nyma’s smooth lilt called out from above him. She kicked his shoe and Keith could barely feel it. “Get out of there, you’ve been working on that same car for two hours.”

Keith sighed and slid out from under the leaky old Subaru he’d been daydreaming under. Nyma’s dark braids were loose and accenting the annoyed slope of her brow, the set of which told Keith he wasn’t going to get off easy. 

“Sorry,” he said without any real remorse. “I thought maybe I could get to the leak without removing the transmission, but I guess not.”

The look she gave him was unimpressed at the very least. “For two hours?”

He shrugged as he sat up. “Shit’s complicated.”

“It’s a leaky transmission. You were practically raised knowing how to seal those.” She crossed her arms over her stained coveralls with a smirk that foretold trouble. “And you already knew the leak was in the front and you’d have to remove it. So I think you were hiding again.”

“That so?” Keith asked, wiping his hands on a rag - as if he’d actually had anything on them. Or had even touched the underbelly of the car. “Well, you found me, so. You win.” 

Rolo peeked up from the corner of the shop, smoke curling around his fingers. “I told her to leave you there.”

“Sorry I actually expect my employees to work when they’re on the clock,” was Nyma’s short reply. “I’ve let it go for a long time, but with the way you’re moping around and getting in the way, you’re more of an inconvenience than you are a help, Keith.”

Keith glared at the concrete, but held his words behind his teeth. It was Rolo who came to his defense again, but not in the way he would have wanted. 

“Aww, leave him alone, Nyma. He’s got a lot on his mind, with - y’know.”

 _Y’know,_ the unspoken words rung between them, empty and hollow as the toll of a church bell. _What with his brother about to die and all._

Nyma sighed, her arms dropping as she relented. “Not that you’re any better. Always getting high in the corner.”

“I already finished. You can’t tell me what to do on my break,” Rolo said, pinching off the end of his joint. He turned his reddened eyes to Keith. “Did you do the thing? Y'know, the one I told you about. _It._ ”

Nyma threw her hands in the air. “And now we’re back to the conspiracy theories.”

Keith nodded, ignoring Nyma. “Yeah, everything you suggested. And I think it was a success. You were right on a lot of counts, actually.” 

“Oh man this calls for a celebration,” Rolo said, but there was an underline to his voice, something not meant for Keith to understand.

Nyma rubbed her temples. “Fine, yeah, okay. Let’s close up early and hit the bar. You two can talk about your weird aliens and I can drink myself into an early grave from all the money I’m losing.”

The bar they chose was one of two in their town that was seedy-looking enough on the outside that it stayed locals-only. No one looked up when they entered and aside from a few guys playing darts in the corner, most everyone kept to their drinks and themselves. 

Keith wished Rolo and Nyma would do the same. He didn’t want to drink and make nice. He wanted to be back in the woods. 

Rolo ordered them a round of tap beers and they huddled close on a rickety table. 

“To aliens,” Nyma said, holding up her pint.

“To _cryptids_ ,” Rolo cut in.

“To whatever works,” Keith mumbled, but clinked his glass against theirs. 

Rolo took a swig and bumped Keith’s shoulder. “So it worked? You found it?”

He nodded and stared into the glossy gold of his beer, counting the bubbles that floated to the surface and popped somewhere in the back of his mind. “Yeah. He’s like 8 feet tall. Took my dad’s watch. I dunno what I’m supposed to do now, though.” 

Rolo nodded, scratching his chin. "That's a good sign. The deal was accepted." He leaned in, breath heavy with smoke and liquor. "Was it sealed in blood?" 

"Okay, enough of that. I don't want to hear about your woodland witchcraft." ”

Keith was content to shut his teeth around his reply, but Rolo fixed her with a Look.

“You can’t disrespect the truth,” he informed her soberly. “There have been too many sightings by too many people. There’s a creature in that woods, Ny, and he has powers beyond our mortal comprehension. In 1978, a guy named Richard Wright went into the woods, looking for a cure for his alcoholism, and when he encountered the Moth Man, he asked it if he could-”

Nyma held a hand up, right in Rolo’s face. “Enough. Drink your beer, watch _X Files_ or whatever later. We’re here to celebrate Keith.”

Keith’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. Hadn’t he just been on Nyma’s shit list earlier for his piss-poor performance at work? What all was there to celebrate? He didn’t like the sidelong look Rolo gave him, either, but his expression mellowed out again and he smiled.

“Right on. To Keith.” 

Of all the weird shit he’d dealt with in the last 24 hours, having to cheers again in the light of their tight smiles really topped the list. 

In the end, they fired him.

He really should have figured it out sooner, between Nyma’s pinch-lipped smile and Rolo’s sympathetic eyes. It wasn’t even like he could blame them. He really hadn’t done much at work since Shiro’s last diagnosis. Didn’t mean he appreciated being dragged to a bar in the saddest send-off party of all time. 

Shiro was gonna kill him.

Shiro didn’t have to know. 

It didn’t even matter anyway. Keith accepted his last paycheck and a sympathetic hug from them both in a blank fog before he wandered back to his bike, feeling nothing much beyond empty. 

Instead of turning right at the intersection to go back to his apartment, he went left. It wasn’t even a conscious decision, but as he always had without ever knowing why, Keith fled to the woods. 

He might as well look for the creature again; he was running out of things to lose. The worst that could happen was a little exercise and a cold nose. 

The woods, despite everyone else’s aversion, always seemed to welcome Keith. Almost like the trees would open a path for him to follow - at least that’s what it felt like.

It wasn’t always so true, a bramble snagging on his jacket reminded him. He probably just had an affinity for the place which made it more welcoming, not the other way around. 

Keith didn’t find the Moth Man. Still, the cool autumn air and smell of oak calmed his nerves. The forest grounded him until he was able to face the world. And Shiro.

Next time, he told himself. 

Next time. 

-🌑-

It took over three weeks of stolen late-night walks and occasional overnight camping for Keith to find the creature again.

It made sense; it was a big forest and he was probably migratory. Cryptids didn’t stay cryptids by being easy to find, obviously. It was just - Keith was getting sort of tired of the smell of citronella and his palms were getting really fucked up. He’d taken to wearing his fingerless gloves any time he left the apartment just so no one would see all the gauze and panic about his well-being.

Eventually, on night 14 of wandering around the massive forest hoping to get lucky, Keith sat down on a fallen log in defeat. His feet hurt, he was getting a cold from being out in the autumn damp, he hadn’t slept well in days, and worst of all, Shiro was exactly the same. After nights and nights of coming up empty-handed, he was starting to wonder if he’d dreamed it after all. 

“So,” he said out loud, half out of weariness and half out of desperation, “I doubt you can hear me. But I was wondering how long this whole exchange thing is supposed to take? My brother’s tests came back today and he’s getting worse. I don’t -” His voice thickened and he scrubbed the sleeve of his jacket across his eyes. “I don’t know what else to do. You were kind of my last hope.”

The moon flickered, casting long shadows over the dark moss. Keith gasped as the air constricted around him. It was like the whole forest was holding its breath. 

A second passed before a soft breeze exhaled through the trees. Keith could feel _him_ standing behind him before he even turned.

“Hi,” he said, shaky and thin. “You, um. You’re hard to track down.”

The creature lifted a many-fingered hand and held it up like a do not cross sign. He clicked and chirped, harsh sounds that ended abruptly. The hand slashed through the air in an X and he turned to leave. 

If the creature left, everything he’d done to that point was useless. He could feel it in his gut; this was the last time they would meet, unless he could think of something fast. 

“I brought you something else,” he tried. “Another gift. In case the watch was no good. If you want it?”

Wings lowering, the moth man turned back to face Keith with a soft hiss. He held up his arm, the sparkle of gold glinting in the low light. 

Keith smiled at his father’s watch on the dark, fuzzy arm. “Oh good. So you like it?”

His antenna perked up and he chirped. 

“Heh. I’m glad.” 

It was hard to get the words out, or to know what to say, but if he didn’t, Keith knew the creature would leave. “So...is the rumor actually true? Can you help my brother?”

Cocking his head, the moth man clicked a few times and lowered his hand. Wings fluttered and he looked around at the treetops. 

If Keith didn’t know any better, he’d say the creature was nervous. Still, clicks and chirps weren't answers to his question. Even with the creature right in front of him, he wasn’t making progress. 

“Wait, here, do you need another offering to speak?” Keith reached in his back pocket and held his palm out. “What about this? It’s my best pocket knife.”

The moth man hissed and skittered back, flaring his wings. They almost glowed as they vibrated, the pattern wavering, flowing over the wings and turning into starlit-night sky.

“Oh, okay…” Keith quickly pocketed the knife and dug in the pockets of his vest. “Um, I doubt you use paper money much. I’ve got a pack of Lifesavers, but I doubt that’s of much interest to you either.”

A long tongue shot out as fuzzy antennae wiggled in Keith’s direction. The moth man’s eyes grew wide and he leaned forward without leaving his spot. 

Keith blinked. “You like Lifesavers?” He pulled the unopened roll out and knelt to roll it along the ground. “Help yourself.” 

Mothman lapped it up with his tongue like a whip and deposited it into one large hand. Squatting down, he examined the candy critically before ripping it open. 

A short bark of disbelieving laughter caught Keith by surprise. “So you’ve got a sweet tooth. Didn’t really see that coming. But a couple weeks ago, I didn’t expect to be wandering around the woods looking for Mothman.”

That earned him a glare. It didn’t last long though, since Keith didn’t seem to be any competition against Lifesavers.

Keith sat and watched the creature chew on candy, spitting out the wrappers. By the time he spat out a yellow one and hissed, Keith couldn't hold himself back any longer. 

“So, listen. You’ve got the watch, you’ve got Lifesavers. At this point, either this is going to work or it was all bullshit. But _you’re_ real, and that’s the strangest part of it all, so maybe it’s not that far-fetched.”

Keith pulled his beanie off and scrubbed his hand through his hair. “My brother, he’s sick. He’s not so bad right now, but it already took his arm, and soon it’ll start spreading everywhere else." 

Crunching candy accompanied his confession and with every bite his hope sunk lower. 

Keith fiddled with his sleeve. "I’m going to watch him decay right in front of me. And then he’ll - he’ll die, and. He’s all I’ve got left. If he dies, I...I don’t know if I can…” His voice cracked and he looked up at the creature in despair. “I heard you can help with things like this, if an offering is made. It’s not true, is it.”

Somewhere between _decay_ and _die_ the crunching had stopped. They stared at each other for a moment before the moth man shook his head, slow and careful. 

He put the half-eaten pack of candy down and fiddled with the watch around his wrist. Then it, too, fell to the ground. Tiny apologetic chirps broke the silence as he pushed the pile toward Keith. 

Despite his best efforts, Keith’s lower lip trembled. He bit it and squeezed his eyes shut so hard he saw stars. His breath hitched as he sucked it in, pushing the panic down, because this was it. This had been it. And now he had to face the truth head-on.

Shiro was going to die, and Keith would be left entirely alone. 

“I,” he tried, and it was watery. “I don’t - I already lost - I can’t -“

The world blurred and all he could see was a fuzzy dark blob move out of sight. 

Leaving him alone. Like everyone else. 

Tears rolled hot down his cheeks. A pained sound ripped through the quiet forest, and his brain took a moment to realize it was him and not Mothman who was the source of that low, wretched wailing. 

Keith bent at the waist and let himself scream.

He screamed at the empty wilderness. Screamed until his throat went raw, until his voice cracked and shattered, and the misery dulled down into quiet sobs.

A few minutes or a few hours later, something fell on his head and bounced off his knee. Then another and another. Thunk, thunk, thunk off his head, rolling to the ground to disappear between his tears. 

“Ow!” he said, the word came raspy and painful from his abused throat. Another acorn caught the tip of his nose and he looked up at the trees with an accusatory glare. “Ow, that - what are you doing? That hurts!”

An entire handful fell from the trees to rain down on him, followed by Mothman himself. He twisted in the air and landed in a crouch next to Keith, emptying his other hand in Keith's lap with a cooing rumble. 

Keith looked down at the pile then back up at Mothman. Snot tickled down his nose and he squinted through his tears. “What are these for?” 

Clicks were all he got in return, because the universe couldn't be damned to give Keith even an iota of a break. It didn't help that the creature was scooping up the ones that had fallen to dump in Keith's already overflowing lap. 

“What the fuck do I do with a lapful of acorns?” Keith looked up at him, fresh tears spilling over. “My brother’s gonna _die_ . Just like mom, just like my dad, and there’s _fuck all I can do about it!”_

The fuzzy antennae fell, making the enormous monster in front of him look like a kicked puppy. With a soft click and a chirp, Mothman plopped the last acorn in his lap. 

Keith looked at it. 

Then back up at him. The red eyes, despite having no pupils, managed to look so _sad_. Keith bit his lip.

Red eyes flicked from Keith to the many escape routes. One of Mothman's antennae brushed his face and immediately pulled away. 

And then, of all the thousands of things that could happen in that moment, Keith snorted - a quick _pfft_ through his lips. Once that sound escaped, he cracked like a swollen dam and started to giggle, which quickly devolved into real, if slightly manic, laughter. 

Mothman startled back, but that only made Keith laugh harder. 

Thankfully it didn’t scare the creature away. Instead, he shuffled closer and closer as Keith’s laughter died down into hiccups. 

“I’m in the woods,” he told Mothman. “Crying about my brother. To _Mothman_. Who is real, loves Lifesavers, and is trying to make me feel better with acorns.”

 _Chirp, chirp, click._ Mothman crouched down to his level, which was quite the feat for something close to 7 feet tall. Worry lined his almost-human face.

“Thanks.” Keith held up an acorn. “For these.”

Mothman cooed at him, tickling his antennae against Keith’s cheeks, making him laugh again. 

Between the purring and little chirrups, Keith could practically hear _you’re welcome_.

-🌘-

It took a while for Keith to come to terms with the fact that his plan was a bust. It took even longer for him to give up the idea that this mythical creature, although real, couldn't help Shiro at all, and therefore there was nothing left to be done. 

Okay, so Keith still hadn’t really grasped that last part. If Mothman was real, why couldn't the other parts be true too? 

Which was why he was back at the same dusty library on the far edge of town - not the shiny new one with the fancy computer lab, but the one that always smelled like decaying paper. 

The light above him flickered erratically, the bulb threatening to die at any moment. That made the faded text almost impossible to read, but the library wasn’t keen on lending out its oldest books. Plus, he had do something with himself during the day or Shiro might realize-

Ugh. None of this information was new. 

Keith sat back, pushing the book away and rubbing his eyes. He could still see the flickering of light from behind his palms and it was giving him a headache. All of this was. 

He needed a break. Fresh air maybe. A Coke. 

He kicked his chair back from the table so hard it screeched, earning him a glare from one of the other patrons. Whatever. Were _they_ communing with cryptids to save their only remaining family member from a degenerative disease? _No?_

Then they could suck his dick. 

Sullen, exhausted, and frustrated, Keith stalked out of the reference area to the main atrium of the library. He jammed a few coins in the vending machine and leaned his forehead against it while it hummed and dropped his soda with a thunk. He didn’t immediately move to grab it; just enjoyed the sensation of the cool plastic buzzing against his forehead. 

“Hey there son!” came a voice from so close behind him that Keith startled. The old librarian chuckled as Keith whirled around, wide-eyed. 

“Sorry to scare you, but I found a few more books that might help with your paper. They’re old and some are just local small-time authors, but it doesn’t hurt to look, right?”

Keith blinked a few times to process that before nodding. “Yeah - yeah sure. Thanks, that’s great.”

“No problem.” The librarian smiled behind thin glasses. “I’ll put them by your other stack whenever you’re done snuggling with the vending machine.”

His embarrassed flush must have been obvious, because the old man just laughed. 

Keith pushed off the machine and collected his soda with a sigh. The click-fizz of the can cracking open was eerily similar to Mothman’s clicks and chirps when he hissed his disapproval. He blinked down at the can, watching the carbonation jump out of the pop-tab opening, but his mind was back in the forest. 

Mothman was real. At least that much he knew. But he’d given back Keith’s watch and his Lifesavers and had showered him, quite literally, in acorns- for what? Why would a cryptid care about stealing a watch, or about cheering him up with plant life? Why would a cryptid _care?_

Keith threw back a swig of Coke. He didn’t pay attention as he walked, too caught up in the past. 

There was no way that _Mothman_ was real but the _exchange_ wasn’t. The problem was the _method_. 

Maybe it wasn’t an easy exchange like all the articles and websites had said. There had to be something _more_ , something he was missing. Keith’s steps sped up as he rushed through the winding bookshelves. 

That had to be it. He couldn’t afford for it not to be. 

As promised, the new books were neatly stacked on top of his messy table. There were even little color tabs sticking out in a few places just for him.

The chair squealed as he jumped in it to stop his momentum. He licked spilled soda from his hand and put his can down in the corner so he wouldn’t accidentally knock it over as he shuffled books and papers around the desk.

The first book was mostly about local wildlife, with a footnote or two about some unexplained sightings. There were a few books on mythological creatures; nothing new or exciting. 

The last book was dusty and practically molded in the spine. It had no title, no author, and the library’s ID tag simply read: ? AN. Keith ran his fingers over the carved leather. 

Inside, it still had a pocket with a yellowed old checkout card. The book had only been checked out once, sometime in 1962 by an L. Fuentes. It evidently hadn’t seen the light of day ever since - at least not before the library went digital.

The formatting looked closer to a journal than a published text, what with its handwritten entries and the dates at the top of each new page. 

As he read, however, he realized it was something very different. 

It was a personal _grimoire_ \- someone’s Book of Shadows. 

Keith closed the book again to look at the cover. The carved leather was actually a forest with monsters carefully scratched and stained between the trunks. 

His eyes locked on one that looked suspiciously like a moth. 

This had to be from a local witch or other practitioner, passed down who knew how many times until it fell into a donation box with other unwanted books. Maybe it was too old for the library to simply throw away, so they ended up chucking it into the Reference section and calling it good. 

Intrigued, he opened it back up and read on. 

The sun was on its way into setting when he hit on an entry that made him blink twice and re-read.

**_The Harbinger_ **

_One of the most unfortunate creatures to ever exist, the harbinger is born of two very strong emotions: guilt and tragedy._

_An individual who feels both of these emotions acutely at the same time may, in extremely rare cares, channel those feelings into a shadow transmutation._

_The result is a creature with the ability to foretell danger, but perhaps saddest of all is that they are so feared and misunderstood, their warnings go unheeded._

_These creatures will seem uncannily human, walking a fine line between familiar and horrifying that makes them uniquely unsettling among paranormal beings. Should you encounter one, be prepared for the message to come - it won’t be a happy one ._

_Important note: the creature is not responsible for what occurs. It is also unknown whether or not the message they bring can be altered, or if attempting to alter it brings it about by inevitability._

The entry itself was interesting, but that wasn’t what grabbed and locked his attention - it was the frantic blue scrawling all over the page. Certain lines were underlined, sometimes twice, and there were notes scribbled in the margins:

**_DATE OF DEATH 10/23 - TIME LIMIT???_ **

**_TRANSACTION._ **

**_SACRIFICE?_ **

**_EXCHANGE -_ ** **_EQUIVALENT EXCHANGE - A LIFE FOR A LIFE??_ **

Keith sat back and stared down at the page. The words blurred and took form: a dusky black object with two very distinct wings and two very large eyes. 

He slammed the book closed and grabbed his bag, sending the chair screeching backward in his haste. 

He’d have to tell Shiro not to come by the garage to get him, make up some bullshit excuse, should Shiro ask - something like, he got sent home early because business was slow. That was believable enough as long as Shiro didn’t look into it, and his brother was so trusting that Keith knew he wouldn't. 

Because there was no time. There was a reaper standing over Shiro held back by a thread and every day that thread threatened to snap. He needed to find that cryptid again and he needed to find out what had changed him into Mothman.

Keith was sure. He was _positive_ this was a step closer to curing Shiro. There was no other option.

-🌘-

When Keith pulled his bike to a stop near the beginning of the hiking trail, he didn’t actually have much in the way of a plan. He’d made a quick stop for supplies, but otherwise, his purpose was much vaguer than it had been the previous few times he’d tromped into the thick of the forest in search of a monster. 

He tugged his scarf over his nose to ward off the cold and set off in a random direction, electric lantern lighting his way through the woods. 

He wandered westward for about an hour before the cold crept under his clothes, tingling in his toes and fingertips. Keith found a stump to sit on and pulled his thermos from his pack, warming his hands on the metal. 

On a whim, he called, “Hey, if you’re there and can hear me...I brought snacks!”

There was a rustle in the trees above him. An acorn fell at his feet, and Keith held his breath, waiting for more. Then a squirrel jumped between the branches, making him sigh in disappointment. 

Sullenly, he pressed his cheek to the thermos and mumbled, “Figures.”

His fingers were warm and his drink was half-empty when a shoe skittered across the fallen leaves, startling him into sloshing what was left of his coffee.

Keith watched it roll to a stop, it’s yellowed laces flopping across a few dead leaves. He looked up in the direction it had come from, but it was impossible to see anything in the shadows of the trees. 

“Thank you,” he said, never taking his eyes off the canopy as he dug in his jacket pocket and pulled out a plastic bag. He held it up and shook it, rattling the candy inside. “Your turn. I didn’t know what you liked, so I just grabbed a bunch of different types of candy. It’s all yours.”

Far more hesitant and shy than a creature towering over seven feet had any right to be, the moth man stepped out, a looming figure between the trunks. If Keith hadn’t made a habit out of analyzing the forest’s shadows, he might have missed the way Mothman materialized, shedding one form of darkness for another like a photo negative against a sheet of black. 

Shaking the bag again, making the candy clack, he tried to coax the creature closer. “I won’t bite.” Chuckling to himself he added, “If you won’t.”

Mothman’s antennae twitched, and lightning-fast, he was down on all fours, skittering towards Keith. 

Keith let out a surprised little yelp. The book had been correct; Mothman was caught in the dead middle between really cute and completely terrifying. 

He squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for impact. 

But none came.

Slowly, so slowly, Keith opened one eye. 

Mothman had stopped a few feet away, just out of arm's reach, and was blinking owlishly at him.

Keith held the bag out with a smile. “Here. All for you. Thank you for the shoe, by the way. That’s a nice gift.”

Mothman chirped with a little curious _purrip_ as he sniffed at Keith. He grinned eerily wide for the slim set of his face. In the blink of an eye he snatched the bag, scuttling a little further back to chirp and click at the candy within. 

Yep, he sounded almost exactly like a cross between a happy cat and a newly-opened soda can. Whatever he was going on about, though, it wasn’t to Keith; it seemed more like he was talking to himself. 

Keith propped his chin in his hand and watched with a bemused smile. “Yeah? Good stuff? What do you like best?”

More clicking, but this time Keith had the impression he was actually being addressed. Too many fingers grabbed at the bag, getting in the way of each other as it opened. 

The bag ripped apart, surprising both of them. All the candy went flying and Mothman scrambled to sweep it into a pile. Wings fluttered in nervous vibration and his antennae pressed back against his head..

Keith knelt, giggling softly as he helped to gather the scattered bars, lollipops, and individually wrapped candies. 

He was careful to keep space between them, he really, really was. So when his fingers accidentally brushed against Mothman’s he pulled back like he’d touched a flame. “Sorry - here, let me help. You want me to open them for you?”

Mothman smiled that too-wide smile and this time his chirp sounded suspiciously close to a _yes._

There was no way it actually was - Keith was obviously projecting - but it made for a nice thought: that not only could he understand the strange fizzy language, but also that Mothman would want his help.

“Okay.” Keith glanced down at his options and grabbed a pink square. “This is a Starburst. They’re pretty hard until you chew them...actually I don’t even know if you have chewing teeth.”

That last part was more of a mutter to himself. Once he’d gotten it unwrapped, he handed it over by one corner so Mothman could take it by the other end. “I think that one is strawberry but they all kinda taste the same, to be honest.”

For not being able to open a bag and for having too many fingers, he was quite delicate when plucking candy from Keith’s hand. 

Mothman took a moment to examine the square, shoving it close to his face. Once he was satisfied it wasn’t poison or something, he clicked what Keith decided was a _thank you._

A long tongue whipped out and curled around the Starburst, pulling it into his mouth. He gurgled and purred around the candy, multifaceted eyes going distant. 

Keith felt himself smiling. “Yeah? You like that one? You look happy.”

Mothman nodded. He’d locked eyes and _nodded_ _at Keith_ in full-on acknowledgment to his question. 

Without breaking eye contact, the moth man held up a candy between them. Keith had to shift his focus to see what he was being offered from his own stash.

“Heh.” Keith’s smile widened as he accepted it. “This is a Jolly Rancher. They’re my favorite. Thanks.”

Mothman hissed and snatched it back. The soft fuzz of his hands was all Keith felt before he realized that his candy had been stolen. It took even longer for him to realize that Mothman was going on some kind of clicking-rant. 

“Whoa, whoa.” Keith held his hands up placatingly. “I’m sorry! You can have it!”

Something that sounded a lot like _wrong_ crackled from Mothman’s throat. He hunched over and picked at the candy as if searching for something.

“I’m sorry!” Keith repeated, holding his lantern up to aid in the search. It was probably a stupid reaction, in hindsight, given that Mothman likely had night vision or something. Still, maybe it would help to show how contrite he was. 

Mothman sighed and sat back, frowning. 

A chilly wind shivered up Keith’s spine and he pulled his jacket closer. 

Before he could think it through, Keith blurted, “Did you like candy before? When you were human, I mean.” 

Mothman froze and the forest went silent. Red eyes turned slowly to Keith, unblinking. 

“Me?” he asked, garbled and rusty, like his voice was being pushed through a filter. 

Keith tried to keep his expression neutral, but inside, he was buzzing. “Yes. You were human once, like me, right? Did you like candy back then?”

Mothman clamped his mouth shut, but he nodded. One long finger pointed at Keith and then he nodded again.

“Yeah, like me. That’s right.” Keith smiled, and hoped it was encouraging. “What was your name?”

His mouth opened again to gurgles and hisses. For a second Keith thought he was angry at him for asking. It was hard to interpret emotions through antennae, clicks, and glowing red eyes, but the clutch of Mothman’s fists and drag of his wings down his shoulders brought him to sudden realization.

Mothman was frustrated. 

Keith wrinkled his nose. Okay, that was fair. The creature could barely talk and Keith had asked for a name. As fast as he could without scaring Mothman away, Keith searched the leaves for a stick. 

_Ah-ha!_

Holding it up triumphantly, Keith grinned. “Here, you can write it.”

In his rush, he’d forgotten to hold it out with the tips of his fingers and instead was clutching it with his fist. Keith didn’t even realize it until a many-fingered hand wrapped around his own.

He looked up into those gemstone eyes, so human in their shape and expressiveness. Maybe it was the angle, or the cold mountain air, but- a wave of intense vertigo washed over him and he swore he’d seen those eyes somewhere before. 

“Do you, um.” Keith cleared his throat. “Do you want my help?”

Mothman gave him a hesitant nod. 

Together they touched the stick to the dirt and in Keith’s lamplight, Mothman began to write. Keith did his best to keep the stick steady. The long, midnight-dark fingers would randomly let go at different intervals like he’d forgotten how to hold a pencil and was trying to remember. His grip would change over and over around Keith’s fist as they drew a shaky L.

Keith smiled at it, and then up at Mothman. “L? Jeez, what starts with ‘L…’ Larry? Larry the Mothman?”

Mothman hissed, flicking his tongue and rattling his antennae. 

Giggling, Keith nodded towards the stick again. “I didn’t think so, but it was worth a shot. Why don’t we do the next letter together?”

They made it all the way to L-A-N-C before Keith caught on. “Lance?” he tried, more unsure in his sureness this time.

Lance the Mothman nodded, stabbing the stick into the ground over and over.

 _Lance_. 

It made something strange and effervescent bubble up inside him, a phantom emotion that tickled at the base of his skull, the ghost of something he ought to remember. The name was like woodsmoke, lingering when there was no trace of a fire. 

Mothm- _Lance’s -_ feather-soft fingers tightened around his fist. In the steep contrast of the lamplight, Keith could almost see a face overlaid on top of the bug-like features. A flash of blue, a contagious laugh, and a mess of brown curls he could run his fingers through.

It made his insides twist in a way that didn’t bear thinking about.

Keith’s smile softened and, nervous but oddly confident, he reached up to cup Lance’s velvet cheek. “Hi Lance. It’s nice to meet you. Officially, I mean.” 

Lance grimaced. Sound bubbled like a teapot and gurgled through his throat. His mouth opened and closed with only choked sounds coming out like a dusty, unused vacuum that’d been clogged. 

“You don’t have to say anything,” Keith was quick to add. “If you even can. We can just write, or you can nod.”

Lance glared at him. Then, taking a deep breath, he tried again. “Ke-Kei-thhhhhh.”

It was the strangest, most skeletal version of his name he’d ever heard, but it made Keith light up. “Yeah! Yeah, exactly. I’m Keith. You remembered.”

Lance stared at him long and hard. Keith could swear he saw a flicker in his eyes that was almost sad. Long lashes framed Lance’s red eyes and they looked as soft as his fur as they lowered. 

“Ke-Kei-thhhhhhha,” Lance hissed out before slamming his mouth shut.

“Lance,” Keith said by way of response, but it was distracted, a little dazed. He was still searching the layers of red in those compound eyes. 

“I bet you had really nice eyes when you were human,” he murmured. 

Lance rumbled a few clicks in the back of his throat and broke away. He scurried back until he was out of reach. “N-noo,” he ground out.

Keith frowned, his side suddenly cold without that looming presence beside him. “Don’t go. Please? We can talk about something else. Here.” He crouched to grab an errant piece of candy - some kind of sour sucker. “Why don’t you tell me a little more about why you like candy?” 

Streaks of red light followed Lance’s gaze as his eyes flicked from Keith’s hand to his face. Then, in the most human action Keith had seen him do, Lance sighed. His whole body sighed with him, shoulders drooping, and wings slumping. 

“Sm- Sm- Smythe,” he whispered like a night breeze through leaves.

Keith frowned as he tried to puzzle that out. “Smi...oh! Smythe’s? Like that old candy shop that used to be downtown?” 

Lance nodded at him, turning slightly. 

Keith was winning his attention back. “I remember that place. It closed down when I was a kid. My brother loved their salt water taffy.” 

Lance shook his head, then nodded, then squeezed the stick he’d stolen from Keith’s grasp. It bent in his huge hand, threatening to snap. 

“To-geh-therr.” Lance scratched the stick in the earth, then pointed.

Keith bent over to look at what he’d drawn. 

It was a shaky stick figure behind a line with another stick figure under the line. Lance tapped his stick to the one behind the line. “Tog-et-ther,” he tried again.

“Uh.” Keith peered at the drawing, willing himself to understand, to be smart enough to communicate the way Lance was trying to. “You went there together? With someone?”

“Lan-sssss,” he hissed and tapped the one behind the line again.

“Oh! That’s you!” Keith cocked his head to examine stick-Lance. “So you were there a lot...did you work there?” 

Lance nodded, grinning too many teeth at him. His antennae jerked back and forth with his head, brushing Keith’s cheek once or twice. It made him laugh softly. 

“That’s neat,” Keith said, for lack of a better acknowledgment, but Lance looked so pleased, he felt like he’d passed some kind of test. “So then who is this other person? Your boss?”

Slowly, Lance shook his head. He dragged the stick across the second figure, leaving a thick line through its body. Cold dampness settled around them and Keith shivered. 

For a quick second, it had felt almost like that line had gone through him, a slow trickle of ice water straight through his heart.

Lance took a long breath and let it out, rustling the leaves around his drawing. When he spoke again, his voice hissed and crackled like radio static. 

“Beware: The wall you built cannot last, for if the man with silver limb knocks thrice on door black, your world will crumble as it once did. A fire from your past.” By the time he finished, his voice didn’t have the animalistic sound to it anymore. It was human and sweet and familiar in a way that ached in Keith’s chest. 

But they were also spindly, thin words, as if Lance was doing everything he could to hold them back and failing. They skittered free, wriggling from his lips like spiders to creep across Keith’s skin.

He reeled back and gaped at Lance, pulse pounding in his cheeks. “...What?”

Lance tapped his stick on the crossed out figure. “Beware: The wall you built cannot last, for if the man with silver limb knocks thrice on door black, your world will crumble as it once did. A fire from your past.”

This was it: exactly what the book had warned him about. To be near a harbinger was to invite some kind of tragic prophecy in through the front door. Keith’s breath came thin and ragged. 

The man with the silver limb.

Only one person that could be. 

“That’s…” Keith swallowed and looked up at Lance, pleading with his eyes. “Is that...how my brother dies? How I die? Is that what you’re telling me, Lance?”

“Always fire. Keith burns too bright.” Lance turned away, dropping the stick. 

Keith couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe. He could do nothing but watch as Lance’s sad eyes closed and he took off into the navy sky. 

-🌗-

Keith glanced at his phone and then up at the repurposed building. If he squinted, he could see past the beige stucco and tan roof that tried to hide the excitement of the building’s architecture. It was built like a miniature castle, though the law firm did a good job of disguising it. 

Nonchalantly, Keith approached the window and tried to be casual as he squinted through the painted glass. Behind the gold cursive that read _Gunderson and Gunderson_ was a bland office. 

A front desk was the main feature of the room. An abandoned computer sat on top of it, playing a screensaver on loop. Tasteful and inoffensive wall art hung above black leather chairs. Boring finance magazines were stacked on a glass coffee table in front of them. 

Keith could almost smell the generic corporate vibes from there. 

Well, he’d put this off long enough. 

After Mothma-er- Lance’s prophecy, Keith had gone home and stared at his bedroom wall until well after dawn had broken. He’d watched the pink rays of light climb his _I Want to Believe_ poster, remembering the way the fire had licked up the edges of the dinosaur poster he’d had on his wall as a kid. 

He hadn’t moved until he’d heard Shiro’s familiar footsteps coming up the stairwell and scrambled to open the door before Shiro could knock - thrice, or at all. His brother had taken one look at his dark circles and haunted eyes and sighed, informing Keith he would take the day off and they could simply hang out, but Keith insisted he’d just been up late watching a monster movie marathon again. 

Eventually, reluctantly, Shiro bought the excuse and drove Keith to “work,” whereafter Keith watched him drive away before backtracking to catch a downtown bus. 

That was how he found himself in front of the building that had once been Smythe’s candy store, chasing the last smoke trails of a quest whose purpose had become a lot more personal. 

Well. Time to pull himself together, and see how much of this whole thing he could make sense of. 

The door chimed when he entered, an electronic _ding-dong_ that was nothing like the cheerful little bell he remembered as a kid. Half the fun of going to Smythe’s had been the sounds that accompanied the smells. Player pianos, wind-up toys, even old phonographs had given the shop a charming, chaotic atmosphere. Now it was sterile, darker, and full of furniture made of somber wood. 

“Can I help you, young man?” 

Keith’s head snapped up to meet eyes with a bored-looking secretary who was returning to his desk with a large cup of coffee. His face made it perfectly clear that he didn’t imagine Keith had much of a reason to be seeking - or for that matter, paying for - legal aid. Keith cleared his throat.

“Yeah, uh. Hi. This might sound a little out of left field, but…”

The secretary raised an eyebrow. 

“...This used to be a candy shop?” He didn’t know why it came out as a question more than a statement, but the man nodded and sipped his coffee. 

“About ten years ago, yes. Are you interested in hiring a lawyer?”

“No. Sorry.” Keith pulled the beanie from his hair and ran his hand through it, as if that made him more presentable. “I was just wondering if there were any records or documents left behind from the previous owner? Photographs? Anything?”

That finally earned him a reaction. The secretary scoffed and gestured with his mug somewhere to the right. “Plenty. We couldn’t get rid of it. If you’re interested, by all means, take it with you.”

“That’s okay, I just want to look.” Keith’s heart leaped. This could work; he might be able to find a clue. He bowed slightly as he stepped around the desk and then hesitated. “I can just-”

“Go ahead. The bosses would probably shake your hand and make you a partner if you took it all.”

“Cool,” Keith said hurriedly, and, “Thanks,” as the secretary went on to mutter something like, _sooner than I’ll ever be anyway._

Keith slid past the invisible barrier that designated customers from employees and threw open the door. Whatever the secretary called out to him was muted as he was hit by the mildewy tang of forgotten history. 

The stairs to the cellar certainly betrayed the building’s age more than the office did. These were old, misshapen stone stairs carved into the dirt back when the city was first built in 17-something-or-other. It didn’t smell like dirt so much as it did of leather and old papers. It was a strange combination, especially given that the one bare bulb he found hanging in the center didn’t reveal anything leather at all. There were, however, plenty of boxes.

Keith pulled one from the top, trying to avoid breathing as much dust and mold as possible. The box was yellowed and unlabeled, and turned out to hold little more than financial records for general upkeep and land sales. In other words, useless. 

Box after box of papers rotting away and old displays covered in layers of dust later, Keith was forced to tie his bandana around his nose so he could use both hands. There was too much to just pick through one handed as he breathed through his shirt.

He’d gone through nearly eight boxes of generic legal detritus before he slumped back into an ancient rolling chair with a frustrated groan. It scooted back a few inches, knocking gently into an old shelf. It must have been enough to jostle the metal, because before Keith could react, he was being softly pelted with old manilla envelopes. They bounced from his head to the floor with a fluttering sound like birds’ wings, leaving him coughing even through his bandana shield. 

When the dust settled, something caught his eye. In the back-and-forth sway of the light, a headline with a photograph peeked out from between sheets of inventory stock. Bending forward, he fished the newspaper clipping from the pile. 

Keith gasped, choking on the dank air. 

In the photo, Smythe’s looked much like Keith remembered it - cheerful and inviting even through the black and white. Mr. Smythe himself looked far younger than the twinkly-eyed old man Keith barely remembered. 

His jacket was chaotically patterned, and he was tugging one end of his ridiculous mustache. That wasn’t what had caught Keith’s attention, however. That honor went to the young man on whose shoulder Mr. Smythe was resting a hand. 

It was Lance. It had to be. Even without the antennae, or the wings, or the large red eyes, Keith would have recognized him anywhere. He was a teen, somewhere around late high school, wearing a simple white shirt with the sleeves rolled up and pushing his hair out of his eyes with a sunny, confident smile. 

And sure enough, the clipping’s heading was: **_Smythe’s Reopens After Refurbishment In Time for Summer_ **

And below:

“ _It’s really something!” says Lance, Smythe’s youngest employee. “We’ve put a lot of work into it, and I think it’s gonna be a big hit.”_

There was another photograph, an interior shot, showcasing all the new furniture and decor. Lance was working the counter, chatting and smiling as he pulled down a jar of Lemonheads. 

His eyes widened. In Keith’s mind, Lance’s - Mothman-Lance’s - stick figure drawing crudely overlaid itself across the photograph. The line he’d drawn was the counter, and the stick figure was Lance standing behind it. The other stick figure was the boy sitting across from him, laughing at whatever Lance had said, his messy hair falling into his - 

Keith froze. 

His fingers trembled as they traced over the faded newsprint, brushing along a face he knew very, very well. 

His own. 

It was him. 

The other stick figure in Lance’s drawing, the boy at the countertop - 

Was Keith. 

-🌗-

Keith didn’t even bother with subtlety; just slammed the kickstand on his bike into the dirt and took off into the treeline. The swinging of his lantern made eerie figures of the trees, and without any sort of breeze, the only sound was the crunch of his boots on dry leaves as he ran. Once or twice, a stray branch snagged his jacket and he lost his beanie somewhere along the way. 

But it didn’t matter. He kept going - ran until his heartbeat pounded in his cheeks and his legs felt numb. 

When the air vibrated with the weight of stillness, he stopped. 

“You knew!” he called into the anticipatory hush. He wasn’t really sure if he was angry, or making an accusation, or just processing the shock of it all, but his voice was ragged as he screamed. “You _knew_ , Lance! Get down here and talk to me _right fucking now!”_

Even as he screamed he didn’t actually expect Lance to appear. It’d always taken hours to find him. So when Lance obediently stepped out from a cluster of trees to his left, Keith had to stop himself from jumping. 

Lance’s eyes glowed dim and soft in the full moon. He chirped, low in his throat, hesitant. A little scared.

“Lance,” Keith said again, because he didn’t know what the fuck to say. _Why didn’t you tell me we knew each other before I was even born? Six decades ago, before you became a moth monster, I might add!_ What the actual fucking fuck.

Instead, he opted to pull the old newspaper from inside his jacket and held it up to the lantern light. 

“Tell me what I’m looking at,” he demanded of the creature who could barely even speak. “Tell me that’s you. And tell me that isn’t me.” 

Lance chirped again, shuffling back into the shadows. Red streaks of light followed his eyes as he shook his head no. 

“No, you don’t get to do that!” Keith protested, anger and desperation and, above all, fear making his voice crack and shatter. “You have answers that I need to hear, and I’m not leaving until you do. This is - it’s -“ 

He shook the paper again for emphasis. 

“It is me, isn't it? Sitting across the counter from you in nineteen-sixty-fucking-two.”

Lance looked down at his fist and then back up at Keith. With a very human-like sigh, he strode forward, wings tucked close to his body. 

Keith took a step back. It wasn’t his fault; Lance was a seven foot tall half-monster striding towards him with an unknown purpose. Anyone in his situation would falter. Probably.

He dug his heel into the soft loam and held his ground.

Lance held out his fist.

“What is that?” Keith countered. “I don’t want another acorn, Lance. I want an answer.”

Lance pressed his fist closer.

Brow furrowed and hand hesitant, Keith knelt to place the lantern between them, then reached forward and unfurled his palm. 

Slowly, finger by finger, Lance let the item drop. 

When the giant hand pulled away, Keith was left with a worn candy that looked like it’d sat in a tree for sixty years. 

“An Atomic Fireball,” he said, more to himself and the woods around them. His eyes went unfocused and his head swam. Pressure rose in his temples and he closed his fist around the candy. “There’s...I’ve never had one. I. Think they’re my…”

“Favorite,” Lance finished for him, voice as soft as leaves. “I know.”

“Lance.” Keith looked up at him, pained. “I don’t understand. What the hell is going on?”

Lance clicked, nervous as he shifted his great body from side to side like a swaying tree. He finally settled and ran a velveteen finger down Keith’s cheek. “You. Keith-friend.”

“This just...isn’t possible.” Keith leaned into the touch absently, the softness of it making him shiver. Before Lance could take it back, Keith trapped the huge hand against his face and nuzzled into it as a way to ground himself while his mind went reeling. 

Almost immediately, Lance moved to cup Keith’s face. 

Were his eyes less red, or was Keith imagining things?

“I lost you,” Lance said, half hissing. 

It’d never crossed Keith’s mind that Mothman would ever cry. And now, at the sound of Lance’s voice, Keith wondered if it was even possible. It seemed on the verge of cracking right before tears fell, but Lance’s compound eyes only dulled, almost purple in their redness.

Keith wasn’t ready to acknowledge that part yet. Asking what “lost” meant was going to open up new realities he didn’t have the capacity for with his head still spinning. Instead, he looked up at Lance from the cradle of his velvet hand and begged with his eyes. 

“Tell me honestly,” he implored. “What were we to each other?”

“More,” Lance answered, then corrected, “Most. My most.”

If he really thought about it, he could feel the dim shades of memories that might have been his own teasing at the back of his subconscious. 

Sunny days and the jingle of a storefront bell and the scratching of an old phonograph as they danced together in a room that smelled like sugar. 

A bare old tree and the look on Lance’s face when he leaned in to kiss Keith on the cheek, warm lips and cigarettes. 

The way he’d melted when Keith surged forward to kiss him back. 

They were all greyscale wraiths he could barely see, shimmering in and out of focus in a way that made him wonder if they were real, or an invented history of his own imagination. How much of the celluloid flashback was something Lance also recalled, and how much was a coping mechanism his brain was struggling to piece together so he didn’t go insane right then and there? 

He blinked back the sting in his eyes and stood on tiptoes to cup Lance’s cheek as well. “I...I think you were my most, too.” 

There was a long stretch of time where they stared at each other under the moon and over the harsh glare of his lantern. 

Lance dipped closer and Keith could feel his body respond like it was habit. Lance was a long forgotten habit that he still didn’t remember. 

But before Keith could chase that thread and find the end where answers had to be, Lance pulled away. 

“Not same. Not mine.” Lance pulled his hand from Keith’s face, leaving him even colder in the night air.

“Why?” Keith demanded. In the wake of the loss, he felt his anger and fear swelling to fill the void once again. “Why not? What happened? How was I there and now I’m here, and how did you go from candy clerk to moth monster?”

Lance whined like a hurt animal. “If mine, you’d know me.”

Keith took a step towards him. A twig snapped beneath his boot. 

“I didn’t run,” he said quietly. “A monster came from the woods, and I didn’t run.” Keith felt a little bad when Lance winced, but he pressed on, “I came back. Again and again. I couldn’t stay away. I think this might be why.” He held up the crinkled article.

Lance wavered, spreading his wings wide, and Keith was scared he was going to run again. Well, he wasn’t going to let him. Not now, not ever again. He reached out, ready to do _something_. Hold Lance in place or yell or hug him, Keith wasn’t sure. 

He didn’t get to find out.

The wings vibrated, shimmering like stardust. Actually, it did look like dust was falling - small, glistening motes, floating down to the forest floor.

With a woosh, Lance flapped his wings and the dust went flying into Keith’s face.

-🌗-

The doorbell to Smythe’s didn’t make him smile the way it usually did. 

Keith was nervous. 

He fiddled with the strap of his overalls, trying to look anywhere but the countertop where he knew Lance would be standing. 

A crisp, clear, familiar and all at once unfamiliar voice called out to him, “Hey, Keith. What can I get’cha today?”

Keith glanced up, and then back down, sliding into one of the plastic barstools by the counter. “Um. I dunno. Surprise me.”

Lance leaned over the counter, blue eyes sparkling. “I’ve been working on something special just for you, but I don’t know if it’s good. Do you trust me?”

Keith’s head snapped up and he frowned fiercely. “Of course I do!” 

A blush burned across his face as Lance leaned back in full belly laughter. 

“You don’t have to be so mad about it.” Lance winked and turned his back to create one of his weird inventions where Keith couldn’t see.

“M’not mad…” Keith muttered more to the air than anything. He worried at his lip, tugging it with his teeth and letting it flop back as he weighed his decision. Ultimately he figured that now, while Lance was distracted, would be his best bet.

He pulled the small bouquet of wildflowers from behind his back and placed them on the counter for when Lance turned around. Their stems were thinned and a little wilted from his sweaty, iron-like grip, but they had otherwise survived the walk unscathed. 

Keith wiped his palms on his jeans and didn’t dare look up, which meant he had no idea what Lance was making.

Not that it mattered. He was happy to be the victim of Lance’s experiments, especially the ones he made just for Keith. 

He startled when a glass that looked suspiciously like a milkshake was dropped in front of him. It was pink, but unevenly so. Some places were still white while others looked almost red. In place of a cherry sat a shining, red Fireball.

Lance pushed it forward but Keith still refused to look up.

“What are those?” Lance asked, all innocence. 

“What is this?” Keith countered back. 

“I call it…" Lance stepped back, shaking jazz hands at the concoction. "Twenty Alarm Fire. Because it uses 20 Fireballs.”

Keith snorted and broke into giggles. “That sounds...pretty much undrinkable. Are you gonna share or make me do it alone?”

"Oh no. I already threw it up yesterday. It's all yours, now." He tapped the bouquet against his chin and Keith had no idea when Lance had grabbed it. "But if you take one sip, I'll give you a lifetime supply of Fireballs for free." 

Keith grinned. Nothing he liked more than a challenge, and Lance knew it. 

He pulled the glass closer and took a long, cocky sip, eyeing Lance the whole time. 

Instead of the heat he’d been expecting, Keith’s mouth flooded with the taste of Jolly Ranchers - his...favorite? He frowned. Took another sip. 

Yeah - that was definitely green apple. 

“How’d you make it taste like this?” he asked around the straw, taking another long drink that had Lance’s eyebrows shooting to his hairline. 

"Woah, hey." Lance hit him over the head with the bouquet a couple times, sprinkling petals around him. "You're going to get a stomach ache. Trust me." 

Keith let the straw fall from his mouth, eyeing the flowers. His stomach was already in knots. 

“Why’d you make me something you know would make me sick?” He stuck his tongue out. “Easier ways to get rid of me, y’know.”

He was stalling. Keith was absolutely stalling, but it was easier to fall back into their normal banter than to spit out what he’d come to say. 

"I didn't think you'd guzzle it down. Sometimes I worry about your constitution." Lance grinned and leaned on the counter, head resting on the hand clutching the flowers.

Balling his fist, Keith looked at the flowers and back at Lance. With a strange mixture of cinnamon and sour apple on his breath, he blurted, “Lance - do-you-wanna-go-to-the-movies-with-me?!”

Lance’s grin wavered and the brightness in his eyes dulled a fraction before both were back in place. But Keith hadn't missed it. The flicker replayed over and over as Lance folded his arms and stared down at the limp flowers. 

"A movie, huh? With Hunk and Pidge?" 

“No,” Keith plowed on. “Just you and me. Just us. On a...you know.” 

“Yeah,” Lance said, soft and quiet, burying his face into the bouquet. “Yeah sure.”

Keith broke into a wide smile and leaned forward on his barstool. When he sat back, it was into the red upholstery of a movie theater seat. 

Disoriented, he turned to the right to find Lance looking at him. The shadows of _Mothra_ from the large screen played havoc over his face, making his smile look wide and wild. Keith felt himself melt a little into the chair with the urge to kiss him. 

“Scared?” Lance whispered, his voice being eaten up by a dubbed scream. 

“Not of Mothra,” Keith whispered back, sliding his pinky on the armrest until it brushed against Lance’s shirt.

Lance shook his head and pointed to his ear. He leaned over the armrest, popcorn shifting precariously in his lap. His breath ghosted across Keith’s ear and it smelled of moss and oak. “If you’re scared you can hold my hand.” 

Keith was quick to lace their fingers together. As soon as they interlocked, Lance was spinning him and they were dancing under the blinking lights of fireflies. 

Ray Charles’ “I Can’t Stop Loving You” crooned from the portable radio at their feet and Keith’s heart pounded against his ribcage. He watched the intermittent glow light up Lance’s smiling eyes. 

The smell of popcorn was still in his nose as Lance leaned in, pulling their bodies flush. “Tell me a secret," he said as he brought them into a slow sway.

Keith shook his head even as he leaned it on Lance’s shoulder. It felt unusually velvet-soft under his cheek. “You know them all already.” 

"Another one. One no one else knows in the whole world." Lance was practically whining. "I want a secret that's only mine." 

Keith nuzzled his nose along Lance’s jawline, inhaling the scent of fire and dry leaves. 

“What if,” he started, mouth thick with cotton. “What if I have one? It should just be ours. But what if I want the whole world to know?” 

Lance turned so that their lips brushed, pulling their linked hands to his chest. He could feel Lance’s heart pounding. “What if I’m selfish and want to keep you all to myself, Kogane?”

“I wouldn’t say no.” Keith pressed up on his toes to murmur the words against Lance’s mouth, with the barest hint of pressure. 

Lance's eyes fluttered closed as they shared each other's breath. 

In the light of the fireflies, their lips pressed together. 

Cold. 

"You gonna eat that or just make out with it?" Lance laughed, pushing the bottom of the cone so that the ice cream smooshed against his lips. 

Keith opened his mouth and lapped at it, then stuck out his tongue at Lance. “You’re gonna get it all over my clothes.”

Lance shrugged. "You missed a spot." Keith froze as Lance leaned over and uncoiled his long tongue to lick ice cream from the corner of his mouth. 

Swiping his finger through the ice cream, Keith painted it along Lance’s lips. “We’re in broad daylight. You really don’t care if someone sees?” 

"Do you?" Lance asked, licking after Keith's finger. 

It looked thin and long. Keith blinked it away. 

He shook his head. “Uh-uh. And if anyone tries something, I’ll pound ‘em before they can touch you.” 

"I have no doubt." Lance dipped his finger into his own ice cream and wiped it on Keith's nose. 

“Hey!”

"You gotta be more careful when you eat,” he said, knocking the cone into Keith's mouth again and jogging away. 

Keith grinned around the sweetness, the challenge lighting up his veins. He slid from his chair and started chasing after Lance, sidestepping the trees that grew up out of nowhere, darkening the sky. He wove through their trunks, crunching over dry leaves as he ran, before he broke through the trees into an alleyway. 

Lance was waiting for him, leaning against the brick with the streetlight barely illuminating him. Keith laughed, breathless, as he closed the distance and wrapped his arms around Lance’s waist. 

“Came as fast as I could,” he said, and it came out like two records playing at once - scratchy, distant, with the words overlaid in the same voice. “What did you wanna show me?”

"It's a surprise, stupid. I can't just tell you." 

Keith's protests were cut off by Lance’s mouth. He pulled Keith close, tugging on his hair and parting his lips.

The summer sun was still warming Keith's skin and ice cream was still cold in his mouth as the autumn leaves rustled around them. 

Keith hummed, chasing after the dueling sensations in the paradox of Lance’s mouth. 

"C'mon. This way." Lance guided him by the hand, both of them giggling in the privacy of the back alley. 

They turned and stepped into a little alcove off the side of the road. The street and buildings continued above them as they stumbled down the grassy decline. 

Keith watched Lance’s antennae bob from behind as they ran, grinning when Lance looked over his shoulder to smile back at him. 

The hill they found themselves on top of was home to their favorite tree - the one they’d danced in front of, and where they’d shared their first kiss. This time, it was decorated with little paper streamers and there was a picnic blanket spread below it. To one side was a plate with fruit, cheese, and two wrapped Fireballs. 

Keith melted a little and squeezed Lance’s hand. “Geez, Lance, what's all this for?”

Lance spun him and Keith easily fell into step. He was used to Lance - his arms and his hands and his constant touching. 

"It's your birthday party. Happy Birthday, doll.”

Laughing, scrunching his nose at the nickname, Keith pushed up to peck him on the cheek. “Is it? Do I get to make a wish?”

Rubbing his neck, Lance eyed the humble set up. “I didn’t bake a cake or anything, but I brought a candle to put in the fruit.”

“Plenty good enough for me.” Keith grinned and looped his arm through Lance’s. “I’ve already got something in mind.”

That earned him one of Lance’s bright smiles, the kind that made the sun jealous and Keith have to look away. He watched the grass as Lance led him to the blanket. 

Flipping out his lighter and a candle from his pocket, Lance stuck it in a big slice of peach. It took a few clicks for the candle to catch. 

Lance held up the plate, singing “Happy Birthday” a little too loud and a little too excited. 

The candlelight guttered, and in its uneven reflection, Keith watched Lance’s face flicker from human to something else. He never stopped singing or smiling, and Keith smiled along with him through every line, because he knew, right then, he was exactly where he was supposed to be. 

When Lance instructed him to make a wish, Keith took in an extra deep breath. 

_I wish we could always be together, Lance and I, no matter what._

He blew the candle out.

Or rather, he tried. 

Instead of disappearing into sudden smoke, the flame grew. Grew and grew, until all Keith could see was bright white light. Lance’s cheering turned to an agonized scream of his name, and the last thing he heard was the blaring of a horn and the crunch of impact. 

Nausea followed him as he fell back into his body. Or maybe he was already nauseous and he hadn’t realized it until reality swarmed back in.

Keith clutched to soft fur as he tried to keep his stomach settled. He felt torn in half, split between time and lost in space. It was dark and too quiet after the bright roar he’d awakened from.

He could still feel his bones crumpling and reforming under his skin; a shadow of him that was long gone. 

Red filled his vision and he flailed. It was a streak of tail lights as he watched the car spin to a halt all over again. Strong arms held him in place as the panic seeped from his muscles and the world slotted into place.

Not taillights - compound eyes. He was back in the forest, in the present, in Lance’s arms.

_Lance._

Keith sucked in a breath and crumpled his fists against Lance’s furry chest. 

“You saw it happen,” he murmured. “Didn’t you? You watched me die. That’s what that last scene was. My death.”

“Yes,” Lance said in his voice that sounded like it was clawing through soil. And now that Keith knew what Lance’s voice was supposed to sound like, warm tones and sunshine bright, it almost hurt to hear.

“I’m sorry, Lance.” 

It was all Keith could think of to say. He felt the echo of his past self’s love for the boy from the candy shop, a Lance who was deaf in one ear with a wide, brazen smile, as if it were his own. And maybe it was; maybe all the years he had spent in _this_ lifetime feeling lost, othered, and alone were because he was waiting for Lance to fill a hole he hadn’t known was there.

He looked up at those scattershot red eyes, chaotic in their mirrored lenses but so emotive nonetheless. His chest ached. 

“Did you know I’d come back to you?”

Slow and pained, Lance nodded.

Keith didn’t realize how close they were until an antenna brushed against the top of his head with each nod. 

“Exchange,” he said, brushing a velvet finger over Keith’s cheek. “It was worth it, now.”

“Exchange….” Keith trailed off as he thought. What would Lance have given to - 

Oh. Oh, no. 

With sudden, sick clarity, he recalled the words from the dingey old library book that had given him his answers. 

_Born of two strong emotions: guilt, and tragedy. Harbingers channeled those feelings into a shadow transmutation._

**_EQUIVALENT EXCHANGE - A LIFE FOR A LIFE_ **

  1. _Fuentes - 1962_



Lance.

 _Lance_ had - because of him -

His eyes stung as he looked up at Lance, and this time he let the hot warmth pool and spill down his face. When he reached up to cup the grey fuzz of Lance’s cheek, his chest _ached._

“Oh, fuck,” was the best he could manage to encapsulate the sickness and guilt and tragedy twisting in his belly. “Fuck, Lance. That’s - that’s why you’re - this? For me?”

Keith could feel the clicks and chirps in Lance’s throat more than hear them. They were so quiet and hesitant. Lance swallowed under his hand.

“For you,” Lance agreed. “For me. To see you again. I couldn’t-” His hand pressed into Keith’s chest and it was like a breeze blasting through his veins. “I couldn’t save you but I could... _this_.”

They weren’t close enough. It wasn’t enough. 

Keith squirmed and tried to push up on his knees, looping his arms around Lance’s neck. He pressed his face against Lance’s cheek and tried to hiccup back the flood of confusing things he was feeling. 

“You shouldn’t have. You gave up - up - shit. _Everything_. And you’ve been alone all this time.”.

“Not now,” Lance said smoothly as he squeezed him close.

Keith could almost hear that flirting tone that had been so essential to who Lance was. He was still in there, somewhere. The shadow transmutation hadn’t eaten up all of him.

Lance leaned back so they could stare eye-to-compound-eye. “I said, worth it.”

Still, Keith frowned. “But - but what if I’d died when I was a kid or something and we never met and then you were like this for nothing, Lance, I just…”

"Then I go with you." Lance laced their fingers together, staring at their interlocked hands. 

Keith’s looked so small in Lance’s and he didn't have enough fingers to fit. Lance's hand continued for a couple more fingers without Keith between them. For some reason, he felt guilty about that.

“So, what, you’re just gonna off yourself if I die?” he demanded hotly, fear clenching his guts. “Like it’s not worth living without me? That’s bullshit, Lance. _Bullshit._ ”

An antenna twitched as Lance cocked his head. “No; it’s not choice. My soul.” He tapped Keith’s chest. “With you. When you die-” He held up their linked hands. “So do I.” 

A life for a life. Literally. 

It was romantic and tragic and so, so stupid that it squeezed the breath from his throat.

“ _Why_ , Lance?” was the best he could do, but he hoped it was enough. Why make the choice, why be so willing to tie them together across time, why - why _Keith_ of all people? Just…”Why?”

“I said you already. My Most.”

It was such a simple answer. So why did it feel like he was overflowing? 

“I think I want to kiss you,” Keith blurted. He bit at his lip, embarrassed, but couldn’t bring himself to take the words back. They were true, whether he’d known it beforehand or not. 

“But I’m-” Lance’s words tore off into purring fizz. Distressed, worried sounds that trembled through his chest into Keith.

Keith found himself petting down the side of Lance’s cheek, following the line of soft velvet. “You’re what?”

“I’m not the same,” he whined, gravel and leaves. 

Keith huffed, amused and disbelieving. “Neither am I - literally, not at all the same - and you don’t seem to mind.”

Lance’s antennae fell like bangs to hide behind. “Different. Monster.” His eyes flashed bright red. “Bad, now. Can only say bad. Only see bad.”

Softly, Keith brushed the antennae back and tried to catch the gaze of his shattered eyes. “You’re not bad, Lance. You gave up everything for the person you loved. You’re more human than a lot of people I know.” 

“You.” Lance nosed him and the red of his eyes dimmed to purple, almost turning blue. “For you.”

“For me,” Keith agreed, quiet and thoughtful. He wrapped his hand around one of the feathery feelers and began stroking it, base to tip, hand over hand. It pulled soft purrs out of Lance that rumbled between them. “I have no idea how any of this happened or how any of it works, but I know you. I think I recognized you the second I saw you, on some level. And I _know_ you’re not a monster.”

Lance’s hand covered his and brushed both his hand and the antenna out of the way as he surged forward. He caught Keith’s lips with his own velvet covered ones, pulling him in by the waist. 

It was unlike any kiss he’d ever had, that was for sure, with unfamiliar textures and the sensation of warm fur against his lips. Yet, it also tasted an awful lot like locking into place, fitting the last piece of a jigsaw puzzle together and finally seeing the whole picture for what it was. He made a soft sound, something between a whimper and a hum, and pressed himself as close to Lance as possible. 

Something in the back of his soul remembered this. Remembered Lance. It reached out, moving Keith automatically, gripping Lance’s hair and tilting his chin just so. 

Lance’s hands were huge, almost encompassing his entire back and Keith had never felt so secure, so safe, so at home. He reveled in the unfamiliar familiarity of too many fingers pressing against his spine. 

Insistent and impatient, he lapped twice along Lance’s lower lip, enjoying the rasp against the tip of his tongue. 

Obediently, Lance opened for him but it was minute and not enough, just a parting of his lips in a gasp. Keith could only imagine waiting for someone to come back from the dead for years, decades, only to have them kiss you again. Whatever Keith felt, Lance had to be drowning in it.

Selfishly he wanted to know just how deep Lance’s emotions went. So, he chased them with his tongue, diving into the depths of his mouth and swallowing the gasp. 

Lance froze under him, fingers trembling against the crinkly nylon of his jacket. 

The inside of Lance’s mouth was surprisingly dry, and had the same earthy taste as the air around them: fog and dry leaves. It was unusual, decidedly alien, but Keith decided he loved it. 

He’d almost forgotten about the long, coiled tongue until he touched it with the tip of his own. It sent a shiver down his back. He leaned forward just an inch more to show Lance he wasn’t running, that he wasn’t afraid. That he wanted this. Wanted him, exactly as he was.

And he was rewarded. 

Lance gripped Keith’s jacket, the plastic of it loud in the night. The tongue inside his mouth unfurled, meeting Keith’s own with decades of starvation. It was much more dexterous than his own, human tongue, able to coil and pull all the while slipping its tip into his mouth. 

He was kissing a cryptid, a real life cryptid. A cryptid that happened to be the love of his lifetimes. It was heady and grounding and overwhelming. Keith never wanted it to end, never wanted them to end. They’d both waited too long even if Keith hadn’t been aware of it before. Now that his soul remembered, it ached inside his chest, screaming for more and rejoicing in their reunion. 

When Keith pulled back for breath, he saw himself reflected in those lamplike eyes, and smiled.

“Thank you for waiting.”

Lance brushed soft thumbs across Keith’s face as if at any moment Keith would disappear. As if he couldn’t believe it was happening. “I’d do it again,” Lance whispered, and his voice sounded almost identical to Keith’s vision. 

Gone was the raspy gravel and the leafy crackle of it. All that was left was smooth, joyous sunshine. 

-🌖-

Keith was shaking.

He revved his bike, sinking lower as he sped down the road. Even though the leaves were bright red and shimmering yellow and the asphalt sparkled under his headlight, all he could see was Shiro.

Shiro had looked so small and so weak on the hospital bed, dark circles under his eyes and tubes sticking out of his arms. It was hell to watch him deteriorate every time he had another episode, and even as he’d sat by his brother’s bed, all he could think about was Lance’s warning.

_Beware: The wall you built cannot last, for if the man with silver limb knocks thrice on door black, your world will crumble as it once did. A fire from your past._

What the fuck did it mean? That he would die in a fire before Shiro? That Shiro would die in a fire before wasting away? That they would both die the same way their parents had, so long ago? 

Was his “past” even _his_ past anymore, or the hollow echo of blood on wet pavement one night in 1962?

No matter what it meant, all Keith could think about was that he was running out of time.

He screamed into his helmet, the sound swallowed up by the wind.

-🌖-

The trip to the forest was Keith’s go-to now. Whenever something was troubling him or Shiro’s condition got worse, he’d find himself driving up the overgrown backroads to talk to Lance.

He swerved into the trail’s beginning and parked before the engine had even finished rumbling down. He only made it about thirty feet into the forest before he was shouting Lance’s name to the shadows.

What Lance did during the day, Keith had no idea. Even though his speech had improved, he still wasn’t as open about himself after he’d turned. Still, whatever he did, he was always quick to answer Keith’s calls now.

The telltale silence choked the birds and muffled the buzzing insects. 

“Keith.”

He turned to find Lance hanging upside down from a branch like a giant, fuzzy bat.

It must’ve been painfully obvious how upset he was, because Lance flipped down and was by his side before he could even blink.

“You’re crying.” Lance brushed a finger down Keith’s chest. It was the same motion as if he were wiping tears from his cheeks, only Lance did it over his heart. 

Keith didn’t bother to deny it. “Shiro’s getting worse. At the rate he’s going, the doctor said he won’t make it to the new year.” 

"I can't stop it," Lance said, voice tight.

“I know.” Keith’s voice crackled. “But he’s my brother and I’m scared. We already lost mom and dad, and now I’m gonna lose him too.” 

Lance held open his arms, wings high over his head. 

Keith melted against him, turning his pewter fur dark with tears as Lance wrapped him in a cocoon of arms and wings, blocking out the world. 

Keith stayed that way for who knew how long. It was probably only an hour or so, but it felt like days of him sobbing into Lance’s velvet fuzz, listening to the gurgles and chirps of his low chatter. 

When he finally quieted down into exhausted hiccuping, he watched his own fingers trace patterns on Lance’s chest. The fur turned darker when smoothed against the grain, and lightened when it lay flat, so Keith gave himself something to do by doodling hearts and their own names. 

After a while he finally said, in a voice that was brittle and raspy, “I wish I could do something for him the way you did for me.”

"No." Lance's hands tightened around him. "Never wish for that." Ever since their kiss, his voice had been normal, but the old mossy quality scraped against his words again. 

Keith sniffled and glanced up at him. “Is it awful? Being this way?”

The wings vibrated nervously around him. “Not anymore.” Even though Lance’s eyes were far from human, the unspoken words shone through them: _now that I have you back._

“I’m glad.” 

They sat in silence for a few more minutes while Keith knuckled at his eyes to rid them of tears and got his breathing under control. All the while, he could feel Lance’s many-fingered hand running up and down his arm, soft and soothing. 

“The thing you said about me…” Keith began cautiously. He hated to bring it up, but - well. That was half the reason he’d come running to Lance in the first place. “About the fire of my past? Is mine the first, um, prophecy-thing you’ve delivered?”

Lance shook his head, slow and careful. “Sixth.”

“Oh.” Frowning, Keith traced his fingers over Lance’s fuzzy knuckles. “How many of them came true?”

“True?” Lance asked, clicking a few times. “They are the truth I have to speak. I don’t have a choice.”

Keith sighed. “You know what I mean. Have any of them been prevented?”

“I-” He ducked behind his antennae. “I don’t know. I’ve never been around.”

That seemed like Lance, so far as Keith could remember. Even if he had no choice in delivering tragic news, he certainly wouldn’t want to stick around to watch anyone suffer. 

Lifting Lance’s hand, Keith laced their fingers together as best he could when they were so differently shaped. “I’ll still have you, right? If Shiro -” He stooped, and swallowed. “ _When_ Shiro dies, there won’t be anything left for me out there. I’ll just live out of a tent, eat berries, forage, and do forest shit forever. Or at least...at least until whatever is coming for me this time actually happens.”

“I won’t let it take you again,” Lance said, cupping his face to force him to look into dim eyes. “I can’t stop whatever is happening to your brother, but you-”

Keith gave him a sad smile. “Don’t think you can become Mothman twice, Lance.”

“Mothman?” He looked up at his wings, then down at his hands. “Oh. Is that what they call me?” Lance asked, words catching in his throat. 

That made the woeful smile crack into a genuine little grin. Lance was just too cute. “Yeah - ever since the Silver Bridge collapse. Or maybe before. Actually, was that one of your prophecies?” 

He nodded. “At least I was able to warn them.”

Too much talking, not enough kissing. Keith stretched up to press his lips against Lance’s, lingering for a moment to try and impress on him his affection, gratitude, and now, admiration. If Lance hadn’t been there, he may not have known the extent of the destruction. Still, if the reports were to be believed, a lot more than 46 people would have died if not for Lance’s forewarning. Maybe that was how it worked - tragedy was inevitable, but it could be worse? 

Or maybe Keith was grasping at straws in an effort to ignore that _he_ was the one with a ticking clock above his head.

“Yeah. Upsides to being Mothman, right?” Keith asked, trying to wrangle some levity from the situation. “You’re probably never cold. Flying’s gotta be pretty cool, too.”

Lance cooed and clicked, all while a purr rumbled in his chest. His hands were in constant motion against Keith’s cheeks and arms and through his hair. 

It made Keith smile, weak as it was. “What’s gotten into you?”

“I can’t stop it, but I won’t let it take you,” he said again. “You’re my most and I already made a deal. I won’t. Not again.”

“You know, I was trying to change the subject.”

Lance’s hands refused to settle. In the flutter of fingers, Keith’s hair untangled from its bun. Other-life memories of Lance running his hands through Keith’s hair when it was cropped short overlaid across the present. 

“You’re still worried about it.”

Keith pressed his lips tight around the words he wanted to say, the realistic but probably hurtful _because there’s nothing you can do._ Instead, he offered, “It’s hard not to be.” 

Too many fingers tangled in his hair pulled him forward until he was pressed against the fuzz of Lance’s forehead. 

“You won’t die, you can’t, and I promise you won’t be alone.”

Keith nuzzled his nose against the soft velvet and kissed it. “Oh yeah? So what’s next - get a really nice tent and live like hermits in holy mothtrimony? I don’t even own a camp stove.” 

Lance snorted and it turned into a giggle and then a full belly laugh. It was warm rays against Keith’s skin. Human. Sweet. Lance, both of them mixed together. It made Keith grin and feel awfully accomplished. 

“Follow me,” Lance finally said once his laughter had died down. 

Keith nodded and Lance scooped him up. 

“Where are we-” Before Keith could finish his question, they were flying through the forest. 

And - yeah, yes. Flying was pretty fucking cool. 

Lance stayed below the tree line, gliding from branch to branch. The trees whizzed by at breakneck speed, and there was no way to tell in which direction or how fast they were going. Wind whipped his hair but Lance’s hand protected his face, shielding him as they traveled.

It was too loud to talk and Lance had ignored his yelled question of _where are we going_ , so he simply sat back to enjoy the ride. 

Secretly he’d hoped to fly with Lance even just once, to see what it was like. To see the world from his perspective. 

It was everything he’d imagined and more. The sensation was something like eternally freefalling - a wild, wind-burnt, controlled sort of chaos that stole the air from his lungs and left him breathless with exhilarated laughter. 

Finally, Lace landed on the branch of a giant oak tree. “Giant” didn’t even cover it. The tree was _huge_ , taller than a house by far. 

Keith clung to him as Lance set him down on shaky legs. The ground was obscured from that high up in the canopy and Keith’s vision swam. He tightened his hold on Lance’s arm.

“Where are we?”

“Home.” 

Lance kept a steadying hand around his waist as Keith looked up, watching the moonlight filter through the leaves. Despite how far up they were, the foliage still seemed to tower above them, stretching long, thin fingers into the night sky. 

“Home,” Keith repeated. 

Lance nodded, inching Keith towards the trunk where there was a huge hole partially obscured by vines. Even with their combined weight, the branch didn’t shake. It was a sturdy tree, the kind that would be magical, if magic existed. 

He eyed Lance’s winged back as he bent to shimmy through the opening. 

Maybe it did, in a sense.

Keith followed him in. It was dark inside - somehow, he’d expected the hollow tree to be lit by fireflies or something - and he blinked a few times to force his eyes to adjust. He didn’t have to wait long.

_Click_

Christmas lights blinked on all around him, twinkling in the pattern of some carol he couldn’t hear. 

Keith was standing on the top of a winding staircase that circled its way down the inside of the trunk. Long slats of wood connected diagonally between them to access shelves full of trinkets. Everywhere - the ‘railings,’ the ‘walls,’ the ‘shelves’ - _everything_ was dripping in strings of yellow lights. He found himself just turning in a slow circle, taking it all in.

The inside of the three was spotless and free of dust, despite the number of knickknacks lining the shelves. 

And there were...a lot of those. 

So. Many. Knickknacks.

They were fucking everywhere: crammed into the side of the tree and piled on shelves, littering the connecting planks. Heck, there was a snow globe that would've gone crashing to the floor if Keith had taken another step to the left. 

“Home,” Lance repeated from below him. 

Keith leaned over the edge to find Lance at the base of the trunk, shuffling around objects like he was cleaning. Not that Keith could tell the chaos apart.

“It’s...wow, yeah, you’ve definitely done a lot with the place,” Keith murmured, bemused. 

He followed the staircase down, trying not to trip as he took everything in. “What is all this stuff?” 

“My stuff.” 

Gently, Keith ran his fingertips over the toys, books, and assorted novelties, touching lightly so that he didn’t disturb them but too drawn to leave them alone.

When Keith reached the bottom, Lance had an armful of yellowing comic books and what looked like Godzilla figures. 

Keith took a look at the titles and chuckled. “Did you like _Mothra_ before or after I took you to the movies? Did I pick the movie? Wait - is that why you’re a moth?”

“I-” Lance’s antennae twitched and he backed up a step. “Um…” His many fingers tapped against the stack, looking away.

Closing the distance between them, Keith reached up to turn Lance’s face back towards him. “It’s okay,” he soothed. “It’s just me.” 

Lance swallowed and sagged, wings falling to brush the dirt floor. “This is your collection. I, uh, saved it.”

“It is?” Keith blinked at the stack. “Huh. So it _was_ me that took you to a monster movie on our first date.”

"I didn't mind." Lance hesitated, then shoved the stack at Keith. "You should have them back." 

Keith covered Lance’s many fingered hands with his own and gently pushed them back towards Lance. “Hold on to them for me and we can look at them together. What else have you got stashed away in here?”

Lance clutched the comics like a lifeline. "You probably won't be interested. It's old." 

“It’s ours, right? Of course I’m interested.” Keith trailed his fingertips over Lance’s soft cheek. “I want to know all about you. Remember the old and learn the new.”

Lance snuggled his face into Keith's hand, mumbling into his palm, “You’re not freaked out?”

Keith laughed softly. “Lance. You loved me enough to give up your humanity and become a moth monster in the hopes we’d meet again. Why would it freak me out if you kept my stuff? I would have done the same thing.” 

Dumping the comics on a cluttered table, Lance gathered Keith into his arms. “Why do you keep saying that? I don’t want you to become like this. It’s so- I’ve been so lonely, Keith. If it was any longer I don’t- I don’t-” his words choked to a halt.

“Whoa, shhh, hey.” Keith stroked the back of Lance’s head, petting the feathery, dusty strands of his hair. “Hey. I’m sorry. You’re right- I have no idea what it’s been like. But we’re together again now.”

Lance purred, pulling Keith tight as he sank to the floor. “I think I almost forgot who I was, until you came back,” he mumbled into Keith’s neck.

Keith wrapped his legs around Lance’s waist and settled in his lap, stroking his hair rhythmically. “It’s okay. I’m here now. It’s okay.” 

"If I could do it again, I'd save your brother. But I don't know how I got this way." Lance melted under his fingers. Despite his enormous height, he looked small in that moment. "Maybe it really was because of Mothra."

Torn between whether to laugh or cry at that, Keith shook his head and pulled Lance down by the neck to kiss his forehead. “The book I found wasn’t very clear on the specifics.” He grew quiet, and sat in the comfortable silence, just enjoying Lance’s strange form of body heat as he thought. 

He wanted to ask Lance about his last memories as a human; Whether his change had been immediate at the moment of Keith’s death, or if he had lingered, desperate and inconsolable. 

There would be time for that, he figured. Right now, Lance needed Keith as much as Keith needed him; to know that, despite their strange and pretty fucking tragic circumstances, they still had each other. 

“You know,” he started. “You were pretty handsome with those freckles I saw, but I gotta say I kinda like the antennae. And the fur. The wings are cool, too.”

Lance snorted, sad and disbelieving, yet unsurprised. "You would. I guess some things never change." 

Keith stole his lips in a quick kiss. “Lucky you.” 

“Yeah, I am.” His thumbs stroked the small of Keith's back and he rocked them both absent-mindedly. "You wanna see? I mean the things your family threw away; I saved most of it." 

He didn’t have any real memories or attachment to any of it, so the concept was more like the prospect of digging up a time capsule. Keith shrugged.

“Yeah, sure.”

Instead of pulling apart, Lance just picked him up as he stood. He sat him down at the far end of the tree where a bunch of picture frames were stacked. 

"You really liked monsters," Lance said, motioning to the stack. 

Keith rifled through the framed movie posters - all originals from B level monster flicks. He quirked a smile at _“The Bat! When it flies, someone dies!”_ and “ _The Undead - Terror that Screams From the Grave!”_

“Yeah, no kidding.” He smiled up at Lance. “How’d you end up falling for such a dweeb? I’m surprised you let me ask you out.”

“You have your own charm. You gave me flowers, you know.” He pointed above Keith’s head. “Plus you looked desperate.”

“Desperate!” Keith huffed but followed his gaze even as he grumbled. His protests softened when he caught sight of the dried bundle of wildflowers hanging from a string. They were brown and shriveled, but he could still remember what they looked like when they were fresh-picked, how they felt as they itched in his sweaty, nervous palm. 

Keith’s chest tightened with a whole host of emotions. He swallowed, thick and needy.

“Hey, Lance?”

“Yeah?” 

“Kiss me.”

Lance’s eyes glowed fire-bright, lighting his cheeks with a false blush. “If you want me to…”

Keith huffed a laugh. “I literally just demanded it.” 

A velveteen hand cupped the entire side of Keith’s face, thumb sweeping his bangs to the side. “Okay,” Lance said, the smell of rain and moss heavy on his breath. 

Lance leaned down, cheeks still reflecting the red glow. Soft lips brushed against his, asking and cautious. 

Keith lapped at them, eager and assertive. “C’mon,” he urged. “You’re not gonna break me. And from the looks of this stuff, we’ve got a lot of time to make up for.” 

“You have no idea.” Lance’s lips brushed against his with every word. Then, Lance was on him, pressing their lips together with a growl. 

Lance grabbed at him, clutching and desperate. One hand fitted around Keith’s waist and pulled him flush, the other tangled in his hair all in an attempt to be closer, to have _more._

Keith came to him, willing and pliant. For all the time Lance had spent waiting alone in this tree full of memories, Keith kissed him full again. There was really nothing strange about it anymore. Dimly he knew that he and Lance had technically only met a month or so ago, but that didn’t mean anything to his heart. He’d known Lance in another life and he’d know him again in the next.

Lance practically vibrated at Keith’s touch, he was purring so hard. It made Keith break the kiss just to giggle against his lips. 

“That’s another thing I like,” he offered. “The purring. I think you used to coo like this when I played with your hair before, too, you big old kitty cat.” 

“Pretty sure that was you, doll.” Lance nuzzled his nose.

Keith scoffed. “I never ‘coo.’”

"You _think_ you never coo." Lance tugged gently at Keith's disheveled hair. 

He leaned into the touch, and was about to protest, but it was pushed down by a pleased hum. As soon as he heard himself, Keith pulled away, scowling. “....Shut up.”

Lance chuckled and kissed his pout. “It’s nice to have you back.”

Keith allowed himself to melt into the kiss, chasing after Lance when he stopped. His emotional state was in ribbons, but in the safe embrace of Lance’s wings, he felt more at ease than he had in...well, ever. 

When they did eventually part, he smirked. “So - first time bringing me home. Aren’t you gonna give me the ten-penny tour?”

“In a second.”

Eventually, once Keith was thoroughly kissed every place Lance could reach, he seemed placated enough to show Keith his past life. They made their way around the tree, Lance telling little stories about this thing or that one. 

Whenever he’d get too far in his head and leave Keith alone as he drowned in memories, Keith would brush their fingers together. Lance would snap back to the present like a rubber band. Keith kissed away the apologies and they’d move on.

When he was showing off Keith’s leather-wrapped hunting knife, which had apparently been his old self’s pride and joy, Lance had gone so deep that his words had devolved into their old clicks and hisses. It’d taken Keith a whole minute to pull Lance out of it. That had been a little too scary, so Keith pocketed it, insisting that he wanted it back.

Each new thing was like a drop in a bucket, slowly filling him up with a sense of completeness, a feeling that this was all Right and Correct and Long Overdue. Keith leaned his head on Lance’s shoulder, snuggled against his side and warmed by his wing. 

“Thank you for keeping all of this,” he said sincerely. “It’s - I wish I could describe to you what it’s like. Like I was a stranger before and now I’m...meeting myself? It’s really fucking weird, not gonna lie.” 

Lance smiled and Keith could almost see the freckles under his fur. “I’m glad. They helped me to not forget you so they’re all my precious memories.” He cocked his head, brushing Keith’s cheek with an antenna. “But now I want to know more about you. The current you.”

Suddenly self-conscious, Keith scratched at the side of his nose and averted his eyes. “Oh, um. Not much to tell.”

“Everything to tell. Even if it’s small.” Lance hooked a finger under Keith’s chin. “I want to know everything about my Most.”

Keith could feel the slow creep of pink across his face at the closeness and the easy epithet. He wondered if it would ever get easier, any less intense, to be the subject of that stoplight gaze. 

“Um...my parents died in a fire when I was 8. I like working on cars but I just lost my job doing it. Uh.” 

Shit, this was really depressing. Keith bit his lip as he tried to think. 

“I like pizza, but I’m lactose intolerant. I...used to want to be an artist?” 

Lance’s smile softened and he nodded to a bed in the corner. “Tell me more.”

Keith didn’t question how Lance had gotten an actual mattress all the way up to the hole in the top of the tree. He was just grateful for something other than a sleeping bag to lay on. Wasting no time in making himself comfortable, he patted the space next to him pointedly. 

“I broke my arm trying to climb over our backyard fence to escape piano lessons,” Keith went on. “My teacher smelled like formaldehyde and I _hated_ it.” 

A second later he was in a nest of moth. Lance curled around him, one of his wings turning into the roof of their snuggle pile. 

Keith told him anything that came to mind, from the smallest detail to some of his bigger life events. The whole time Lance urged him on, asking questions here and there, but for the most part let him ramble. 

He talked until his throat was sore and his eyes were drooping. Lance stroked his arm, and the feathery fingers coaxed him closer and closer to sleep.

The last thing he could remember was red eyes, hooded with an emotion so deep and soft, Keith couldn’t even give it a name. 

-🌖-

The heart monitor beeped over the drone of the various machines. 

Every time Keith came to visit, Shiro grew thinner. His wrists were near-skeletal against the scratchy hospital sheets. 

Keith couldn't help but wonder if the machines that were theoretically keeping him alive were actually draining him instead. 

They’d been watching TV for a while, pretending to actually be interested in sports, when Shiro piped up with, “So? How’s work going?”

It took everything in him not to wince. “Fine, I guess. It’s uh...kinda slow.”

There. That wasn’t... _technically_ a lie. 

“Slow? That’s not very good, aren’t you paid on commission? Don’t tell me Nyma hasn’t been giving you your share again.”

“No, she paid me.” Also not a lie. “Just not much work right now. But it’ll be fine. You know I don’t need much.” 

Keith couldn’t stand the worry in his brother’s eyes. Worse than knowing that Shiro was going to die was seeing how damn _guilty_ he felt about it. Like it was his fault he was leaving Keith behind. 

Even worse was the weak smile under Shiro's mischievous eyes. It only highlighted how tired his brother had become, how hard it was for him to do simple things like joke around. 

"You know Black has just been sitting around. I bet she needs a tune up and a good drive once we get home.”

Keith snorted. “Such a stupid name for a car. Thank god we never had a dog for you to name Max or Rover or Spot or something.” 

“I was thinking more like Kosmo if I ever got one.”

“Noted.” Keith ignored the past tense.

“Here.” Shiro tapped the table next to his bed. “Keys are in there, go pull Black around. I’m tired of waiting for an official discharge. It’s like they _want_ to hold me here.” 

Shiro made a face in the general direction of the door. “I’ve just started being obnoxious to get their attention instead of pushing the button. Makes things faster and more entertaining.”

Keith snort-giggled. The flicker of Shiro at his best warmed him a little to see. 

“Oh yeah?”

Shiro grinned. “Yeah, watch.”

He raised his metal arm and knocked it hard against his bed rail. It made a jangling clang that echoed in the small room. 

The hair on Keith’s neck prickled.

“Hey Nurse!”

 _When the man in silver limb_ \- Keith heard, his ears filling with static. 

_Clang._ “Excuse me, heLLO!”

_Knocks thrice on -_

Shiro lifted his arm a third time and Keith launched himself forward, grabbing the prosthetic in midair and shrieking, “ _Stop it! NO!”_

“It’s fine, Keith,” Shiro said, the playfulness in his voice dropping into concern as he turned. “I’m just joking around. It’s fine.”

The alarm klaxons in his head receded enough for Keith to remember the more important part of the prophecy - _on door black_. This was a hospital bed. 

Shiro was fine. 

_For now_ , his brain reminded him. Keith forced that thought violently aside. 

“Sorry,” he exhaled, stepping back. “Sorry, I just - it’s like nails on a chalkboard, you know?”

"Oh, sorry." Shiro's easy smile slipped back on, lifting the hollows of his eyes. "C'mon. Go find a nurse to let me the hell out so we can go home. Yeah?" He ruffled Keith's hair. 

Keith made the effort to roll his eyes, to reestablish normalcy for the both of them. “What do I get out of this situation?”

“An adoring brother and a paycheck?”

“Lame.”

Once Keith had tracked down a nurse to start Shiro’s release, he stopped in for Shiro’s car keys and, on instinct, a long, lingering hug. Neither of them would say it aloud, but the air was thick with the reality that any hug at this point might well end up as their last. He wasn’t going to waste an opportunity. 

“Sorry,” Keith mumbled into Shiro’s shoulder, so thin and meager compared to the thick muscles he was used to. “I just…”

“Don’t apologize,” Shiro countered. “I ‘just,’ too. Be careful backing Black out of the garage.” 

“Will do.”

“I love you.”

Those words had never caused Keith so much pain before. Every time he heard them now, he wanted to curl in on himself. Just...retreat into some dark hollow where reality couldn’t find either of them ever again. 

His voice was garbled and salty when he murmured back, “Love you too.” 

Keith held onto the feeling of Shiro’s hug as he made his way to the parking lot. His own motorcycle would have to make do with hanging out at the hospital for a while. 

He whispered a silent apology in her direction and turned to patient parking. 

Even if he couldn't take Black to the shop, that didn't mean he couldn't give her a checkup at home. Once he’d gotten Shiro settled in for ( _don’t say ‘hospice,’_ his heart urged) ...well, for good, he'd make sure she was running like a dream. Black was a classic, after all, and deserved the best care he could give. 

Keith ran his hand over the waxed paint from headlight to polished door handle. 

She was a 1962 Cadillac Series 62; Shiro's pride and joy. Lucky ‘62 of the 62 series. It was the car Keith worked on as Shiro taught him the ins and outs of an engine. Black owned a little piece of his soul. 

He slid inside and shut the door with a click. 

Hands shaking, he tried to find the ignition, but the key refused to go inside. 

Tears streamed silently down his cheeks, cutting a path across his dry skin. They almost burned. 

The interior smelled like Shiro’s cologne. 

He wondered how long that would last. 

Eventually, he managed to get the car started. That was progress. Next was settling himself enough to get his seatbelt buckled and put Black in reverse. One step at a time. 

This late in the year, the sky was already well on its way to total darkness at almost 5 in the afternoon. He pulled in front of the hospital and stared at the way the red sign over the door reflected on the hood. 

It reminded him of red eyes, trailing like an afterimage in the dark woods. 

“My baby!” he heard, and turned to see a put-upon nurse wheeling Shiro through the front door. He was grinning like mad, and would almost have looked like his old self if not for how small he was in the chair.

As she helped Shiro into the passenger seat, he stroked the dashboard lovingly. “Hello baby, daddy missed you.” 

Keith snorted hard. “ _Gross_.”

Shiro ignored him and continued to coo at his car. “Did you miss me too? Did you?”

He still made a point of rolling his eyes, but Keith was smiling. 

Keith opted to take the back roads home, mostly to avoid major traffic so he could put Black through her paces. The engine felt good, lively and industrial in a way the rumble of modern cars could never match. It was like riding a young stallion, barely reigned in, and Keith took pleasure in the simple, mindless act of piloting a well-made machine. 

Machines made sense. If they broke, you could fix them. _He_ could fix them. Unlike so many other things. 

Yet... _Lance_ had done the impossible. _Lance_ had saved Keith somehow. 

And while Lance had told Keith over and over not to wish for the same thing, he couldn’t help it. The thought chewed at his brain that there was a _way_ , not just a way, but a way that had _worked._

Keith could do that, he thought as he watched Shiro close his eyes and lean the seat back. He could live as a half monster if it meant saving his brother. He wouldn’t be alone after all. He’d have Lance.

Monster boyfriends, Keith thought, chuckling. His past self probably would’ve liked the idea.

||x||

If he kept heading down this road, he’d eventually work his way up the mountain where Lance lived. He briefly considered it; Lance would like Shiro, and Shiro, after his initial disbelief and probable horror, would like Lance. In fact, they probably would have a lot to tal-

He saw the headlights coming towards them a split second before the crash. 

-🌖-

Fire. 

Smoke.

The sharp tang of gas.

Keith blinked his eyes open, but they were welled with tears. Everything was blurry. And red. Yellow. Orange. 

Fire.

His mind caught up with him and he glanced to his side, fear stabbing icicles through every nerve ending. Shiro was slumped in his seat, but at the first shake on his shoulder, he groaned. 

Still alive. Keith exhaled, but his next breath filled his lungs with smoke. 

He had to get them out. 

Around him, he could hear shouting and the distant wail of an ambulance. He fumbled with his seatbelt, but the catch wouldn’t release. 

And he just _couldn’t breathe._

Keith’s side ached. Actually his whole body ached, but there was something digging into his stomach. He fished it out of his jacket, hands closing over the leather case.

Lance’s knife - no, _his_ knife. From his past life. 

He flicked off the case and prayed that Lance had kept it sharp. He didn’t need to worry. The knife cut through the fabric like butter. 

Shrugging off the straps, he turned to Shiro. “I’m going to get us out, okay? Can you hear me?” 

Shiro groaned at him and Keith worked faster, sawing until the belt snapped. With Shiro free from his seat belt, he just needed to get them out of the car. Keith’s head swam as he turned to the door. 

His whole body felt like it was moving underwater, too slow and blurry. Coughing out a lungful of smoke, he pushed against the door. Jammed.

He pushed harder. Slammed his body against it. Used both his arms to just- get- it- _open!_

But the door stayed stubbornly stuck. 

“It's fine, don’t worry. Just hang on. I got this.” Keith wasn’t sure if he was reassuring himself or Shiro.

All of his muscles protested as he lifted himself up to the canvas roof. If he could cut a hole big enough, he could climb up and pull Shiro out behind him. 

The knife made short work of the convertible top. In less than a minute, Keith almost had a hole big enough for them to crawl through. 

A small break. Just a few seconds, enough to get his strength back, and then he’d help Shiro up and out. He fell back into his seat, head pounding and choking on his own breath. 

The screeching and horns grew louder, along with the din of shouting voices. Keith squinted as a beam of light fell over his face, splintered by the shatered window. He blinked into it until the light was replaced by a man’s face. 

“Son?!” came his muffled voice. “You hang tight now, alright? We’re gonna get you out.”

Woozy with smoke and heat, Keith watched through the flames as a flash of silver glinted in the firelight. The crowbar banged against the metal as the man tried to jam it into place. He did it again, and the sound was louder. 

“Goddamn thing’s stuck solid,” the man grunted to someone beside him. “Come on, help me, on three. One - two - _three_!”

The strike of the crowbar against Black’s door was the loudest sound in the world, ringing in his ears as the men outside pried the metal open. It wrenched away from Black with a groan, bringing with it a rush of clean air. 

“Alright there, son, I’m getting you out.”

“My brother -“ Keith protested weakly. His voice was destroyed and near-useless, but he tried again. “Please, my brother -!”

“We’re working on it,” the man assured him. “We’ll get you both out. Watch yourself, I got you-“ 

The entire world fell silent as if reality was holding its breath. Then, in the next instant, it exploded.

He heard the roar of it, the shatter of glass, the rush of flames into the night sky even as he was hurled from the car with the force of the blast. His body raced through the air in slow motion. Dimly, he registered that there was a full moon.

He could feel bones crunching even through the pain when he slammed into the asphalt. Everything was wet and sticky and his own knife was protruding from his abdomen. 

Keith felt himself slipping, and that was when he knew. 

He wasn’t making it out of this alive. 

The realization was, in a way, almost peaceful. But there was something else that needed to be done. 

_Equivalent exchange_ , he thought. _A life for a life_ **_._ **He could give up what he had left for his brother. 

But then, another memory - Lance linking their fingers together, and the easy way he’d explained it. When Keith died, Lance died. He’d given up his humanity to bring Keith back, and now it would all be for nothing. His entire sacrifice, gone - because Keith had to choose. 

And he didn’t have much time. 

Kill his love to save his brother. Or do for Lance what he had done for Keith. Give them a shot at a second - third - chance. 

His eyes were drifting closed now. It was impossible to keep them open as darkness crept in around the corners of his vision and carbon-laced sleep dragged him towards infinity. He blinked at the two round lights he could see across the way: twin tail lights that looked so much like Lance’s red eyes. 

In the end, it wasn’t a choice at all. 

_I’m sorry_ , Keith thought. He made one last, desperate wish. 

And was gone.

-🌕- 

||o||

The night Shiro went to the mountain, it was snowing. 

A soft blanket of undisturbed whiteness dampened the sounds around him, until all he could hear was the hiss of snow on dead branches. He tugged his hat down further over his ears and watched his breath coalesce in front of him as he planted through the effort of climbing. 

Beside him, Kosmo made a whining, fussy noise as his paw sank into another hidden hole. When he pulled it out, he shook it with a growl that made Shiro laugh. 

“Just a little further, boy. Promise.” 

Kosmo whined but fell back in step, snapping now and then at the falling flakes. 

As they walked, the forest shifted. Nothing changed, just shifted minutely. If Shiro hadn't known what to look for he wouldn't have noticed. 

It started with the press of atmosphere lightening around him. Then the quiet of the snow grew and the wind settled down. Even Kosmo’s panting grew soundless. Only his own boots echoed against the trunks. 

That was how he knew he was close.

In another few feet, the trees parted and gave way to a clearing, in the center of which was a large stump. Shiro and Kosmo crunched their way over to it, mindful of how loud their footsteps had become in the conspicuous absence of sound.

Shiro knelt in front of the stump and brushed the snow from the top. 

“It’s a mix of classics and the new additions. The girl at the comic shop assured me that the new series was worth it. If you like them, I’ll get more,” Shiro said to the log. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and used it as a barrier between the comics and the wet snow. 

“Kosmo’s been doing good at doggy school. He’s going to graduate this week and be a fully fledged service dog.” Shiro scratched behind Kosmo’s ears with pride. Patting his haunches, Shiro stood up and dusted the snow from his knees.

“I’m also about to graduate from physical therapy. I have almost 80% of my muscle mass back.” Shiro chuckled to himself and turned to head back down. 

“Anyway, I miss you. And happy new year.”

He’d gotten a few steps further when he heard a distinct sound, as if an entire flock of birds had taken off at once. When he turned back around, the comics were gone, replaced by something else he couldn’t quite make out.

When he approached the stump again, his lips twisted up into a smile. 

There, sitting neatly where the comics had been, was a little pile of Smythe’s saltwater taffy. 

A quick shuffling to the left caught his attention. Shiro snapped his head up. Twin pairs of glowing red eyes flashed through the drift of falling snow. 

As soon as he blinked, they were gone. 

**Author's Note:**

> A LAMPLIGHT ZINE IS ON ITS WAY! [Fill in the interest check](https://forms.gle/mC5FDchy4TEVPHNm7) to learn more about our first zine!
> 
> A note on the ending: !!slkdjflaksjdf DON'T WORRY! I thought we'd made it clear, but KEITH ISN'T DEAD. The "twin pairs of red eyes" is to show that Keith was able to do what Lance did for him: give up his life for his brother to become a harbinger. So Shiro gets to live. Then, because Keith DIDN'T really die, Lance gets to live too. So now they spend their time happily ever after as moth boyfriends, reading comic books and eating candy in their treehouse, and sometimes Shiro brings them stuff. 
> 
> If you want to play a fun bingo game: find all the hidden references to the year 1962  
> Another fun game: If you didn't notice, go back to the beginning, and watch the moon icon change as their relationship evolves <3
> 
> Bro, Pretz's art is AMAZING I just... I *cant* Please check out their [Instagram ](https://instagram.com/pretzellus?igshid=1uoqosnx3zttt)
> 
> Autumn: I hope you enjoyed <3 If you did, we'd really appreciate if you'd drop a comment below, even just a heart or something. I can't express to you how motivating it is to see that "new comment" notification, and everything little thing is appreciated and adored. It helps us keep turning out content for you guys, so win-win! 
> 
> Sail: I had so much fun writing Lance. I was nervous because IDK cryptids well and I was worried autumn would be disappointed with mothmanLance. Both autumn and pretz seemed to like him so I hope you guys like him too! all i can say is that i did my best and i really love this story with all my heart. i think it turned out better than i expected
> 
> Our comms are open! [Check them out here uwu](https://linktr.ee/sailunchartedwaters)
> 
> Like what we do? wanna hang out with us on Twitter? [Autumn Ignited](https://twitter.com/AutumnIgnited) and [SailUnchartedWaters](https://twitter.com/SailUnchartd)


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